Honolulu - based Hawaii Pacific Health has fired an employee after discovering the employee had inappropriately accessed patient medical records . The employee worked at Straub Medical Center . The health system found that the employee had wrongfully accessed patient records between November 2014 and January 2020 . According to HHS ’ Office for Civil Rights data breach portal , 3,772 patients may have been affected . Hawaii Pacific Health does not believe the former employee was accessing the information for the purpose of identity theft . Rather , they believe the employee was acting out of curiosity . Nonetheless , Hawaii Pacific Health is offering the affected patients one year of free credit monitoring and identity restoration services . Patient data that may have been exposed included names , addresses , phone numbers , email addresses , dates of birth , religion , race / ethnicity , Social Security numbers , medical record numbers , primary care providers , dates of services , appointment notes , hospital account numbers , department names , provider names , account numbers and health plan names . Since the incident , Hawaii Pacific Health has reviewed its internal procedures and staff training . The health system is also looking to invest in different technologies . Hawaii Pacific Health has discovered an employee of Straub Medical Center in Honolulu has been snooping on the medical records of patients over a period of more than 5 years . Hawaii Pacific Health discovered the unauthorized access on January 17 , 2020 and launched an investigation . An analysis of access logs revealed the employee first started viewing patient records in November 2014 and continued to do so undetected until January 2020 . During that time , the employee viewed the medical records of 3,772 patients . After concluding the investigation , the employee was terminated . Affected patients had received treatment at Straub Medical Center , Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children , Pali Momi Medical Center , or Wilcox Medical Center . The types of information that the employee could have viewed included patients ’ first and last names , telephone numbers , addresses , email addresses , dates of birth , race / ethnicity , religion , medical record numbers , primary care provider information , dates of service , appointment types and related notes , hospital account numbers , department name , provider names , guarantor names and account numbers , health plan names , and Social Security numbers . The reason for accessing the records was not determined , but Hawaii Pacific Health believes it was out of curiosity rather than to obtain sensitive information for malicious purposes . However , data theft could not be ruled out . All patients whose records were accessed by the employee were notified by mail on March 17 , 2020 and were offered one year of free credit monitoring and identity restoration services . Hawaii Pacific Health is reviewing and updating its internal procedures and will be providing further training on patient privacy . The health system is also investigating new technologies that can be implemented to identify unauthorized medical record access and anomalous employee behavior access more rapidly . ;