For one of the biggest healthcare data breaches in history, the lawsuits haven't stopped yet. In December 2005, thieves broke into the parked van of an IT systems analyst for Providence Home Services, a Washington state health care company, stealing a computer bag with ten unencrypted tapes and disks holding information on what would turn out to be more than 365,000 hospice and home health care patients--everything from Social Security numbers and birth and death dates to diagnoses, prescriptions and insurance numbers. Data on doctors, including their Medicare and Medicaid and state license numbers, names, addresses and phone numbers were also missing.

Now, in a lawsuit filed Aug. 28 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, near Portland, former Providence Home Services IT systems analyst Steven Shields is seeking $1 million in damages from his former employer for allegedly violating Oregon's whistleblower law. Steven Shields, the employee who left the records inside the van, alleges in the lawsuit that <A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2185992,00.asp?kc=EWKNLEND092107STR2">he was fired for reporting the December 2005 incident to police.</A> Whistleblower laws prevent companies from firing employees who make a good-faith report of wrongdoing. If employees are worried about losing their jobs, the law reasons, they may not do the right thing when a dangerous situation occurs.