From a statement posted today: Carolinas HealthCare System is notifying approximately 5,600 patients of Carolinas Medical Center-Randolph (CMC-Randolph) whose private information may have been breached by an unauthorized electronic intruder and approximately 700 additional patients of the affected provider as a precautionary measure even though no evidence has been found that their information was obtained…
Category: Health Data
West Virginia Supreme Court affirms HIPAA does not pre-empt state law tort claims for privacy violations
I seem to have missed a lawsuit that may be of interest to readers. Back in September, Bordas & Bordas, PLLC wrote: … What if our private information is released without our permission? What if it falls into the hands of someone who can actually cause us harm? These aren’t abstract or hypothetical questions. The danger…
Ca: Medical files of local media personalities breached
This is long past the point where this type of curious employee goes snooping has become a well-known risk. One can argue that at least VCH detected it fairly quickly and took action fairly quickly, but how about prevention? CTV reports: A female Vancouver Coastal Health employee has been fired after accessing the confidential electronic…
Privacy breach at Bay of Plenty District Health Board
Kiri Gillespie reports that the Bay of Plenty District Health Board has fired an employee for snooping in 48 patients’ files and then casually discussing the cases with co-workers. Read more in the New Zealand Herald. In related coverage, Phillipa Yalden reports that the employee is a 66-year-old woman who was employed at Tauranga Hospital…
Third Annual Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy & Data Security
The Third Annual Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy & Data Security by Ponemon Institute, sponsored by ID Experts® was released today. Their findings are what we would expect, i.e., fairly discouraging, with entities reporting even more multiple breaches than previously. From their executive summary: … healthcare organizations face an uphill battle in their efforts to…
HITRUST's Analysis of U.S. Breach Data Finds Little Progress and Concern for Un-reported Breaches
The following is a press release from HITRUST, released today: -According to the Health Information Trust Alliance’s (HITRUST) analysis of U.S. healthcare data breaches from 2009 to the present, the healthcare industry has made little progress in reducing the number of breaches with troubling statistics seen from the same types of organizations, breaches and locations….