Colorado VA Alerting Vets Whose Personal Information May Have Been Compromised

DENVER – The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System (ECHCS) is notifying 2130 Veterans that their personal information may have been compromised when a VA employee emailed unencrypted documents containing Protected Health Information (PHI) to their personal email account. Information at risk include the Veteran’s full name, last four digits of their social security number and diagnosis. ECHCS is sending letters to each identified Veteran contained in the documents, notifying them of the potential disclosure of their information.

“Any time a Veteran’s personal information may be compromised, we take the matter very seriously,” said Sallie Houser-Hanfelder, the ECHCS Director. “We are reaching out to each Veteran who may have been impacted.”

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System is committed to protecting the privacy of our Veterans. The VA is conducting an ongoing investigation surrounding this unauthorized disclosure and we are taking steps to mitigate future incidents of Protected Health Information being disclosed without legal authority.

Veterans who have questions or concerns about whether their personal information may have been involved can call a special hotline at 1-888-3368262 extension 17777 during normal business hours. We will have specially-trained staff ready to answer your questions when you call.

The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System is a Joint Commission-accredited facility serving Veterans in eastern Colorado and parts of Kansas. The VA Medical Center is located in Denver, Colorado and the Community Based Outpatient Clinics are located in: Alamosa, Aurora, Golden, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, La Junta, and Lamar, CO. There are Primary Care Telehealth Outreach Clinics in Burlington and Salida, CO, an ambulatory surgical center at the Air Force Academy, two Community Living Center Units, one in Pueblo (40 beds) and one in Denver (60 beds), and along with the Department of Defense and Veteran Benefit Administration, an Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) Center at Fort Carson, CO. For more information, please visit http://www.denver.va.gov.