Stuff reports: An insurance company has been forced to reach a settlement and change its policies after breaching a man’s privacy by accessing his full medical history without permission. The unidentified man brought a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner after the company he applied to for trauma insurance accessed his full medical…
Category: Health Data
FDNY EMS sued over photos that violated privacy and humiliated people
Despite my efforts to stay on top of news stories about privacy breaches, I am no longer surprised to learn that I’ve missed some big ones. Such appears to be the case involving some members of the FDNY EMS service. In March, Twitter and the media lit up after racist tweets by “Bad Lieutenant,” identified…
IL: Loyola Medical Center employee charged with identity theft
A Loyola University Medical Center employee has been charged with identity theft. MySuburbanLife.com reports that Riverside police charged Katrina R. Spears of Chicago with one count of felony identity theft. The charges followed an investigation that began in August following a complaint from a patient who reported her identity was stolen after being treated at…
Long after some breaches occurred, we first find out via HHS's breach tool (Update 1)
HHS updated its breach tool yesterday. The following is an annotated list of new entries on their list. It is not clear to me why there are breach entries where the breaches occurred in 2011 or 2012. Did HHS delay in adding incidents to the breach tool or are entities first discovering and/or reporting the…
NZ: Nurse suspended for privacy breach
Wilma McCorkindale reports: A former Dunedin enrolled nurse who illegally accessed details of a patient’s termination of pregnancy and then texted another person about it has been suspended from practising. Rayleen Jeanette Park has appeared before the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal on charges under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003. In a tribunal decision…
A privacy/confidentiality breach risks medical mistakes
Here’s a situation in which there’s clearly been a privacy breach, but the privacy issues may actually be the least of the patients’ problems. Heather Graf reports that a former patient at the Carol Milgard Breast Center has filed a complaint after discovering three other patients’ records were mixed in with her own, raising questions of…