Kaiser Permanente Colorado Wednesday confirmed that a laptop containing information such as the name, gender, date of birth, member identification numbers and physician information of approximately 38,000 members was stolen from the car of an employee in California.

"The data included on the laptop was part of a review of an internal health quality project and is limited to two Kaiser Permanente Colorado medical offices: Skyline and Southwest," the company said in a statement.

Though the theft occurred on Oct. 4, Kaiser began notifying affected members of the incident only this week. The reason for the delay: Kaiser's IT staff needed time to go through "hundreds of thousands of files" to figure out exactly what information was on the stolen laptop and how many people might be affected, said Jacque Montgomery, a Kaiser spokeswoman.

All of the information on the laptop was password-protected, and at least some of it was encrypted, she said. "Everything indicates that the laptop was stolen for its value and not for the information in it."

The letters sent out by Kaiser explains the security breach and advises members on what to do if they believe their information was being misused in some way, she said. The company has also set up a special phone line to answer questions related to the incident.