Lance Griffin has an update to another long-running data breach lawsuit: A federal judge has granted class action status to a civil lawsuit involving the theft of personal information at Flowers Hospital, believed to have occurred in 2013. The decision, if ultimately approved, means people who believe they have been adversely affected as a result…
Category: Health Data
UNC Health Care notifies 1,300 prenatal patients of potential breach
Abbie Bennett reports: UNC Health Care is alerting its prenatal patients that their confidential medical information may have been shared with their home county, including Social Security numbers, sexually-transmitted disease information and more. Women seen for prenatal appointments at two UNC Health Care obstetric clinics between 2014 and 2017 may have filled out a form…
DA launches criminal probe into St. Charles breach
The St. Charles Health System may think they’ve met all their obligations in their handling of an insider snooping incident, but Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel says the matter should have been reported to them for criminal investigation. Now that’s interesting to think about. If a covered entity is convinced that an employee snooped…
AU: NSW hospital patients not told their medical records were found in public areas
Nick Dole reports on the lack of transparency and notification following breaches of health data in NSW: NSW hospital patients have had their confidential details compromised on multiple occasions, including medical records being found in a public carpark. Many of the most serious privacy breaches have been reported in the Central Coast Local Health District,…
No, you can’t defend your reputation if it means revealing PHI without the patient’s consent
Here we go again, it seems. No matter how irate you may be a patient’s bad review and no matter how unfair you think it may be, no, you cannot just reveal their protected health information without their consent – even if they revealed some of it themselves. Patrick Danner reports: A San Antonio doctor…
TX: Email gaffe revealed 1,417 cancer patients’ email addresses
Cindy George reports: A “carbon copy” email sent last week from the Houston Methodist Cancer Center to patients showed the addresses of all recipients, potentially revealing their identities to the public and their association with the treatment facility. Patients were alerted about the issue by Houston Methodist in a letter dated March 16 and sent…