James Allen Wilson, a former employee in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's billing department, has been accused of taking more than 1,000 patients' records to file bogus insurance claims. The employee allegedly used the patients' identities to file workers' compensation claims through a fictitious lab.

Hospital officials said that Allen, who last worked at Cedars-Sinai in March 2007, had access to the patients' records for billing purposes. But Allen was not permitted to take identifying information home.

The accused was arrested Nov. 6 by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Wilson has pleaded innocence in multiple felony charges, including identity theft, insurance fraud and grand theft.

The hospital has spurned into action. The chief financial officer has sent letters to affected patients warning them of the suspected theft. He urged them to monitor their credit reports and in case of any discrepancy they should notify the district attorney's office.

Probably the theft could be possible due to the hospitals' increasing reliance on computerized record-keeping.

"In this case, it appears the privacy breach was not the result of someone accessing information they should not have accessed, but instead the privacy breach involved an individual illegally using information that he had legitimate access to as part of his job," Chief Financial Officer Edward Prunchunas wrote in the letter that the hospital provided to The Times.