By Pamela Wible MD

Could a complete stranger receive your echocardiogram results in the mail? Could a homeless guy in Boston end up with your labs in his shopping cart? Is it possible that your medical records were sold on eBay?

Yes. Yes. And yes.

On February 24, 2011, Massachusetts General Hospital was fined $1 million dollars by the federal government when an employee inadvertently left a stack of papers on the subway. These documents contained the protected health information of 192 patients, many with HIV/AIDS. Where did these medical records go? Nobody knows. Maybe a homeless man wandered off with the papers in his napsack.