Starting next week, local hospitals will start notifying patients whose data was breached during the cyber attack on October 23, 2023.
Each organization, Bluewater Health, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores Healthcare, Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, and Windsor Regional Hospital will send letters to affected parties. The letters will include the information that was compromised and provide a contact at the hospital.
"An individual could receive more than one if by chance their information was included in a breach in stolen data from more than one facility. There will be a separate number for each hospital for those individuals to reach out to to get more information," said Chatham-Kent Health Alliance President and CEO Lori Marshall.
At Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, approximately 69,000 patients were affected by the breach.
Officials confirm medical records were not stolen. However, information like names, addresses, diagnoses, appointment dates, and some health card numbers were compromised. No social insurance numbers or financial information were compromised.
At Erie Shores Healthcare, 102,000 patients will be notified that some of their information was involved in the breach.
This information was stolen from administrative reports from a restricted shared drive. The reports included patients' names, addresses, dates of birth, health card numbers and reasons for the visit. No social insurance numbers or financial information was included.
The breach involved around 46,000 patients from Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare. The data stolen includes names, dates of birth, locations of care, diagnoses, treatment information, and health card numbers.
Finally, at Windsor Regional Hospital just over 27,800 patients had their data involved in the breach. Most of these names came from admission sheets, census sheets and assignment sheets saved to a shared drive by staff. Information included names, hospital room numbers and general diagnoses. Full health records, social insurance numbers and financial information were not compromised in the breach.