By By Dan Hounsell

Healthcare IT managers continue fortifying defenses of their in-house technology and devices in an effort to stem the growing tide of cyber attacks seeking valuable patient information. Unfortunately, data breaches continue at a rapid pace.

The California Department of State Hospitals recently discovered that an employee data breach uncovered in February affected about 2,952 more individuals than initially believed, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. The department on Feb. 25 discovered that an employee who had access to Atascadero (Calif.) State Hospital data servers as part of their IT job responsibilities had improperly viewed the private health information of about 1,415 patients and 617 employees. Patient and employee data exposed in the breach included names, COVID-19 test results and information needed for COVID-19 tracking.

The additional data involved in the breach belonged to about 1,735 current and former hospital employees, as well as 1,217 hospital job applicants who never became employees.