WBRZ - Baton Rouge

GRETNA - A suburban New Orleans hospital is notifying patients that their personal information may have been contained on a missing computer hard drive.

Ochsner Medical Center said Monday that the external hard drive missing from its West Bank campus was used to back up data for bone density scans screening patients for osteoporosis. The scans date back to November 2005.

A news release said the missing drive may contain patient names, addresses, birth dates and medical histories.

The hard drive was discovered missing on Jan. 19. Ochsner says it believes there is "minimal risk" to patients' personal information because the data was stored in a proprietary format.

Ochsner will be sending letters to patients whose data may be on the missing hard drive.