Overview

• On June 27, Michigan Medicine mailed 1,015 envelope-free recruitment postcards that displayed a limited amount of protected health information.
• The research team stopped the mailings upon discovering the lapse and opened an internal investigation that found the Institutional Review Board had mistakenly approved the postcards.
• On August 14, Michigan Medicine began sending notification letters to affected individuals and opened an assistance line at 1-833-353-4105 for patient inquiries.
• The health system assesses the risk of medical or identity theft as low but encourages patients to monitor their health insurance statements for any signs of fraudulent activity.
• Michigan Medicine will review and enhance its data safeguards while the University of Michigan IRB commits to additional staff training to prevent similar issues.