CBC News reports: A doctor with Covenant Health is under investigation by Alberta’s College of Physicians and Surgeons for improperly accessing electronic health records to find out information about her partner’s ex-husband. The matter was referred to the college by Covenant Health, after an investigation by Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner Frank Work. Work found…
Category: Health Data
Supreme Court Looks On HIV-Positive Pilot's Emotional Distress Mostly Unmoved
Yesterday I blogged about oral arguments in Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper, a case that asks the Supreme Court to decide whether The Privacy Act of 1974 allows awards for emotional distress when there is no other harm or injury demonstrated. Over on Huffington Post, Mike Sacks provides a write-up of how oral argument went,…
Survey – More patient data breaches, less security, and more headaches for patients
Ponemon has released a new survey on data breaches in the healthcare sector. The Second Annual Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy and Data Security, sponsored by ID Experts, is available on their web site, but I want to pull out a few points from the results that I think are worth noting: The number of…
UK: Hospital cleaner charged with data protection breach
More on that breach at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary a few weeks ago when a patient complained of being contacted on Facebook by a cleaner who learned her name while she was in the emergency ward. The hospital subsequently reported that he had not accessed her information from any database but had seen her name on…
Ca: Flin Flon Health Clinic Tightens Health Info Policy
Short and to the point from CJOB in Manitoba: A health clinic in Flin Flon has stepped up its policies on the destruction of personal health information. Someone contacted the Manitoba Ombudsman’s office after partially burned medical records containing personal health information were found blowing near a highway and gravel pit. The Ombudsman investigated and…
UK: Thousands of health records lost in council security blunder
Since Big Brother Watch came out with a report on breaches disclosed in freedom of information requests, there have been a number of stories about individual councils. This is just one of them. Adam Courtney reports: A security breach saw Hammersmith and Fulham Council lose the confidential health records of 3,500 people which were being…