Michael Milstein reports: Personal information, including some Social Security numbers, of about 1,600 patients at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Portland was inadvertently posted on a public Web site, Portland VA officials said Saturday. The breach also involved patient information from other VA hospitals around the country, but Portland VA spokesman Mike McAleer…
Author: Dissent
Inspector general knocks HIPAA security oversight
John Moore reports: A review by the Department of Health and Human Service has found the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service wanting when it comes to oversight of health information security. HHS’ Office of the Inspector General issued a report Oct. 27 that finds CMS has fallen short of its charter to enforce the…
20 Hospital Workers Accused Of Violating Collier's Privacy Fired
Twenty hospital workers — nurses, admissions workers and patient relations staff — lost their jobs this week, accused of breaking federal privacy rules by accessing the medical records of the Jaguars’ Richard Collier. Two weeks after Collier — who was shot 14 times — was well enough to be discharged from Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center, 20…
Professors Call For Regulation Of Electronic Health Records
Cost and security concerns about bringing health care record keeping into the 21st century through electronic health records (EHR)have led to a call for an effective regulatory and oversight system from a pair of Case Western Reserve University professors. “Electronic information can be illicitly accessed from anywhere and transmitted across the globe quickly, cheaply, and…
Tally of improperly accessed UCLA patient records tops 1,000
Rong-Gong Lin II reports: The number of patients whose hospital records were improperly accessed by employees at the UCLA Hospital System has topped 1,000, state officials said Wednesday. Kathleen Billingsley, director of the California Department of Public Health’s Center for Healthcare Quality, said the records of 1,041 patients have been breached, up from 939 in…
CA: State ends review of privacy breaches at hospitals
SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER reports: The state has ended its investigation into privacy breaches at UCLA hospitals, where celebrities such as Britney Spears and Farrah Fawcett had their medical records illegally accessed by employees. Six state reports were released on the matter over the last several months—the last one Wednesday—detailing a widespread practice of workers taking…