Personal information relating to 58 clients may have been compromised after a home care worker’s bag was stolen from her car late last month, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) said.
The WRHA said the employee was returning paperwork — which included personal health information for her clients, including names, dates of birth, addresses and telephone numbers, and information about health services — to her office to be shredded when she briefly left her bag unattended in the vehicle.
During that short window of time, the bag was stolen.
The WRHA said it’s in the process of contacting the people affected by the breach directly, and that the home care program doesn’t keep any financial information about clients.
The health authority will be conducting an internal investigation to make sure its safety protocols were followed in this incident, and to avoid similar breaches in future.