Alere Home Monitoring Announces Theft of Company-Owned Laptop

WALTHAM, Mass., Nov. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Alere Home Monitoring announced today that a company-owned laptop containing individual information, including names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and diagnosis codes, was stolen from a locked vehicle.  The vehicle belonged to an Alere Home Monitoring employee. 

Alere Home Monitoring has no reason to believe that the information on the stolen computer has actually been accessed or inappropriately used.

Nevertheless, in compliance with both state and federal regulations, as well as its own corporate compliance policies and procedures, Alere Home Monitoring has notified approximately 116,000 individuals of the incident via personal mail and is alerting the media in certain states.  In these notices, Alere Home Monitoring has offered all impacted individuals a complimentary subscription to a credit monitoring service for one year in order to monitor for potential impacts to their credit.

In order to prevent similar breaches from occurring in the future, Alere Home Monitoring has updated its information security program, including, but not limited to, deploying encryption to laptop computers that connect to Alere Home Monitoring's computer network, and providing additional education to Alere Home Monitoring staff.

"Alere Home Monitoring apologizes to those affected for any concern, inconvenience, or risk that this incident may cause," said Alere Home Monitoring President, Jon Russell.  "We regret that this incident occurred and are taking appropriate steps to protect individuals who may have been affected by this breach and to limit or prevent such breaches in the future."

About Alere Home Monitoring                    
Alere Home Monitoring is the leader in anticoagulation monitoring and management services. We've helped over 10,000 clinicians track 450,000 patients and 30 million INR tests by providing the critical tools needed to safely manage anticoagulation patients. We improve clinical, operational and economic outcomes for physicians, and offer more freedom and better quality of life for patients. Our clinically proven, connected offerings consist of a finger-stick INR monitor, home INR monitoring service, and disease management software. Together these components provide increased INR visibility and decision-making support designed to improve patient safety across the continuum of care.

SOURCE Alere Home Monitoring