DataBreaches.Net

Menu
  • About
  • Breach Notification Laws
  • Privacy Policy
  • Transparency Report
Menu

NC: OCR clears hospital of charges in HIPAA complaint, patient sues

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Dissent

Emily Ford reports that although OCR found no violation of HIPAA’s Privacy Rule, a patient at the Rowan Regional Medical Center has filed a lawsuit against the center, alleging privacy violations.

Rowan Regional Medical Center will undergo voluntary corrective action next month after a former patient filed a privacy complaint against the hospital.

Federal investigators found no violation of patient privacy rights. But employees in the Rowan Regional departments implicated in the complaint will undergo training on safeguarding medical records, confidentiality and more, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.

The hospital departments named in the complaint were not disclosed by the Office for Civil Rights, which investigated the HIPAA Privacy Rule complaint filed Aug. 26 by former patient Jennifer Alexander.

HIPAA is the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Alexander alleged that Rowan Regional inappropriately used and disclosed her protected health information and a hospital employee harassed her and her family.

Separate from the complaint, Alexander also has filed a civil lawsuit against the hospital, Novant Health and two hospital employees for negligence, defamation, slander and invasion of privacy. Novant owns Rowan Regional. The two employees are not being named because they have not yet been served with the lawsuit.

[…]

Alexander filed her lawsuit against the hospital Dec. 30 in Forsyth County Superior Court. Novant Health is based in Winston-Salem.

The six causes of action in the suit include negligence, negligent retention and supervision of employee, negligent or reckless infliction of severe emotional distress, intentional invasion of privacy, defamation-slander and breach of parents’ duty to supervise minor children.

Read the full story in the Salisbury Post.  The attorney for the patient raises a number of questions  including whether the center itself has adequate audit methods in place to detect inappropriate access to a patient’s records.  This will be an interesting case to follow.

H/T, HealthLeaders Media

Related posts:

  • From the “What Could Possibly Go Wrong Department” after it went wrong, Monday edition
  • Updating: CaptureRx incident impacted more than 2.4 million. List of Entities.
  • Small-Scale Violations of Medical Privacy Often Cause the Most Harm
  • More victims of MOVEit breach are revealed: Nuance discloses for covered entities (UPDATE 1)
Category: Health Data

Post navigation

← AU banks: massive social engineering FAIL
Victim numbers continue to climb in EVG Quality breach →

1 thought on “NC: OCR clears hospital of charges in HIPAA complaint, patient sues”

  1. Anonymous says:
    January 10, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    So the hospital making corrective actions and employee’s that are implicated have to be trained? It sounds to me that the hospital in NC accepted a deal so to speak. If a violation didn’t occur why agree to make corrective actions and retrain employee’s? I wish the OCR would get tougher on the complaints and not let hospitals walk away with a slap on the wrist.

Comments are closed.

Now more than ever

"Stand with Ukraine:" above raised hands. The illustration is in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine's flag.

Search

Browse by Categories

Recent Posts

  • Horizon Healthcare RCM discloses ransomware attack in December
  • Disgruntled IT Worker Jailed for Cyber Attack, Huddersfield
  • Hacker helped kill FBI sources, witnesses in El Chapo case, according to watchdog report
  • Texas Centers for Infectious Disease Associates Notifies Individuals of Data Breach in 2024
  • Battlefords Union Hospitals notifies patients of employee snooping in their records
  • Alert: Scattered Spider has added North American airline and transportation organizations to their target list
  • Northern Light Health patients affected by security incident at Compumedics; 10 healthcare entities affected
  • Privacy commissioner reviewing reported Ontario Health atHome data breach
  • CMS warns Medicare providers of fraud scheme
  • Ex-student charged with wave of cyber attacks on Sydney uni

No, You Can’t Buy a Post or an Interview

This site does not accept sponsored posts or link-back arrangements. Inquiries about either are ignored.

And despite what some trolls may try to claim: DataBreaches has never accepted even one dime to interview or report on anyone. Nor will DataBreaches ever pay anyone for data or to interview them.

Want to Get Our RSS Feed?

Grab it here:

https://databreaches.net/feed/

RSS Recent Posts on PogoWasRight.org

  • Supreme Court Decision on Age Verification Tramples Free Speech and Undermines Privacy
  • New Jersey Issues Draft Privacy Regulations: The New
  • Hacker helped kill FBI sources, witnesses in El Chapo case, according to watchdog report
  • Germany Wants Apple, Google to Remove DeepSeek From Their App Stores
  • Supreme Court upholds Texas law requiring age verification on porn sites
  • Justices nix Medicaid ‘right’ to choose doctor, defunding Planned Parenthood in South Carolina
  • European Commission publishes its plan to enable more effective law enforcement access to data

Have a News Tip?

Email: Tips[at]DataBreaches.net

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

Contact Me

Email: info[at]databreaches.net

Mastodon: Infosec.Exchange/@PogoWasRight

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

DMCA Concern: dmca[at]databreaches.net
© 2009 – 2025 DataBreaches.net and DataBreaches LLC. All rights reserved.