Who: Southside Medical Clinic

# of Records: Undetermined When it happened: A viewer alerted the local news to an issue in a parking lot across the street from the clinic. The news reporter went to an abandoned building across the street, where he found hundreds of patient documents in a dumpster and others stored outside in shipping crates. The records were in plain sight and included patients’ personal information, including Social Security numbers and medication

What happened: February 18, 2019

How it happened: Hundreds of patient records were left partially burned in a parking lot, where anyone could have taken them and contained visible confidential information such as Social Security numbers and medications.

Outcome: Southside Medical Clinic said they have no idea how the records got there but they are investigating the matter.

They have issued the following statement: “We are opening a full investigation into this matter. Securing our patient’s records and caring for our patients are top priorities. We follow strict protocols for removing and destruction of records, which does not include burning. We have recently had several episodes of vandalism from sealed and locked containers, which may be where this occurred, but we have not had any reports of missing records.” Officials are preparing to pick up these shipping crates. Some of which contain files that are 50 years old.