OTTAWA — A memory stick containing patient information has disappeared from Ottawa's Montfort Hospital, a letter sent to patients revealed.
The letter from the hospital's chief privacy officer, dated Jan. 15, says the "unsecured USB key... was recently lost" and apologizes for the loss of information, which included patient names, a summary of services received, the date of service and a code representing the health-care provider on the case.
The memory stick didn't contain sensitive information such as health insurance numbers, diagnosis or test results, home addresses or payment information.
The missing information was collected in October.
"We have at this time no reason to believe your personal health information has been accessed by an unauthorized person," the letter says.
The letter doesn't indicate how many patients had information on the USB stick. The hospital promised to re-evaluate its privacy measures following the "unfortunate incident."
