On Wednesday, a report released by the California Department of Public Health revealed that more than 1,000 patients' hospital records were inappropriately accessed by University of California-Los Angeles Hospital System employees, up about 100 since the state's last report, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Kathleen Billingsley, director of the state public health department's Center for Healthcare Quality, said the records of 1,041 patients have been breached, up from 939 identified in the August report.
In a statement, UCLA attributed the increase to breaches that it voluntary disclosed to the state after conducting an internal audit. The newly disclosed breaches occurred between January 2004 and June 2006 at the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, according to the statement.
Billingsley said that the report concludes the state's investigation of medical privacy lapses at UCLA Hospital System unless other breaches are discovered (Lin, Los Angeles Times, 10/30).
State regulators in March launched the investigation after the Times reported that UCLA employees improperly accessed celebrity patients' electronic health records.
UCLA Medical Center computers containing the patients' EHRs allow officials to track which employees accessed which individuals' files (iHealthBeat, 5/7).