The latest HIPAA breaches across the country continue to reinforce the importance of basic security measures, with stolen laptops causing trouble for one hospital.

North Shore-Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health System in Great Neck, NY, recently notified patients that their health information might have been compromised after laptops were stolen from a contractor’s office. The health system determined that in September 2014, five laptops were stolen from the offices of Global Care Delivery, a firm based in Dallas that processes and collects payments from payers to hospitals. Data on about 18,000 North Shore-LIJ patients was on the four laptops. LIJ reported that the laptops were password-protected but not encrypted.