Notice of Data Security Incident

At Children’s Hospital Colorado (Children’s Colorado), protecting the security and confidentiality of patient information is of the utmost importance. Regrettably, this notice concerns an incident that may have involved the personal information of some Children’s Colorado patients.

On June 22, 2020, Children’s Colorado learned that a provider’s email account may have been accessed by an unauthorized party from April 6, 2020 to April 12, 2020. Upon learning of the incident, Children’s Colorado immediately secured the affected email account and retained a leading forensic security firm to investigate. During Children’s Colorado’s investigation into that incident, it determined on July 22, 2020, that the Children’s Colorado email accounts of two other providers were impacted, as well.  With the assistance of the forensic security firm, Children’s Colorado conducted a comprehensive search for any personal information in the email accounts. The type of information at issue varied for each individual, but may have included name, date of service(s), medical record number, zip code, limited clinical information such as diagnoses, and for a small number of individuals, Social Security number. Importantly, no other documents or systems, including patient charts or Children’s Colorado’s electronic medical records system, were impacted by this incident. 

Children’s Colorado has no evidence that the information in the email accounts has been misused or even accessed. However, in an abundance of caution and full transparency, Children’s Colorado is notifying all potentially affected families for whom it has contact information.  

Children’s Colorado deeply regrets any inconvenience this incident might cause, and is committed to taking steps to help prevent something like this from happening again, including evaluating additional platforms for educating staff and reviewing technical controls related to email. Patients seeking additional information may contact a confidential, toll-free inquiry line at 1-877-241-6420 between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., Mountain Time, Monday through Friday.