Jail time for a privacy of invasion is not that common, so I thought I’d post this one from Oregon: An Oregon nursing assistant spent eight days in jail after a jury found her guilty of taking disturbing photos of elderly or disabled patients and posting them to her Facebook wall. A jury convicted Nai…
Category: Health Data
Kern Medical Center notifies 1,500 patients after records stolen from physician's car
Christine Dinh reports: Kern Medical Center is sending out letters to 1,500 patients notifying them their medical records have been stolen. KMC says the theft happened February 25. A hospital resident physician conducting research printed out 1,500 records of patients who previously visited the clinic for valley fever. The resident took home the records in…
Blue Cross error lists 1,000 customers' e-mail addresses
Richard Craver reports on what I would consider a minor breach: A communication error by a Blue Cross Blue Cross of N.C. employee Wednesday exposed the email addresses of about 1,000 customers to everyone who received the email. The email was sent to inform the customers of changes in their billing cycle. Customers were required…
New York Court Finds Clinic Not Liable for Employee's Disclosure of PHI
I can picture a lot of lawyers breathing a sigh of relief over this one. Robyn Sterling writes: A federal district court dismissed an action against an employer alleging vicarious liability for an employee’s dissemination of a patient’s protected health information (PHI) related to treatment for a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Specifically, the court found…
Houston doctor's office vandalized, patient data on stolen hard drive
A media/substitute notice: The office building and office suite of Jeremiah J. Twomey M.D., was vandalized during the weekend of December 31, 2011, at which time an external drive containing personal and confidential health information of individuals was stolen from Dr. Twomey’s office. Unauthorized use of this data is unlikely. Any individuals who believe they…
NJ: Information stolen from records of 445 Hackensack University Medical patients
Mary Jo Layton reports: Hackensack University Medical Center officials said a former employee stole information from the records of 445 patients and the hospital has been notifying those patients they could be the victims of identity theft. The employee, a clerk, took the information from files at an outpatient clinic. The information included patient names,…