Category: Health Data

Sean Parnell, FOI Editor, writes: Patient privacy has been compromised in the federal government’s bid to control health spending, with a key agency found to have illegally merged data from Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. In a case likely to fuel privacy concerns over planned electronic health records, the embattled Professional Services Review has…

Criminal HIPAA convictions are still pretty rare. Here’s a case prosecuted in the Northern District of Georgia: Matthew Paul Brown, 30, formerly of Atlanta, Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee, pleaded guilty on September 14 in federal district court to charges of health care fraud and wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information. According to United States…

Seen on TMZ.com: A limo driver is suing the people behind the TV Guide reality show “Nail Files” — claiming the show recorded him when he went into diabetic shock … and made it appear like he was drunk. According to the lawsuit, filed in L.A. County Superior Court, Fred Busby claims he was dispatched…

Holbrook Mohr reports: The Veterans Administration announced an investigation today into whether medical or financial information from parts of 3 states was compromised after more than 1,800 files were found spread on an office floor at a veterans’ hospital in south Mississippi. The investigation could affect veterans, deceased veterans or VA employees in 7 counties…

A small notice/entry on the Information Commissioner’s Office site yesterday: An Undertaking to comply with the seventh data protection principle has been signed by Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust. This follows the loss of a CD containing personal data during a move of office premises. View the Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust…