In-house attorneys and compliance officers at health care providers are coping with an ever-rising number of serious data breaches affecting millions of patients, and they need to take further action to prevent them, lawyers who advise hospitals and health systems said.

In one of the latest disclosures, Mount Sinai Health System in New York City recently began notifying more than 33,000 patients of Mount Sinai Pathology Associates of a compromise involving their personal information. The compromise is a result of a months-long security breach at American Medical Collection Agency of Elmsford, New York, a debt collection service that has since filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York in White Plains.