Joseph Goedert has an interesting article on Health Data Management about the South Shore Hospital breach, focusing on whether South Shore Hospital is required, under HITECH, to notify individuals by postal mail or if they can use the “substitute notice” provisions under Massachusetts law. Goedert writes, in part: According to a new statement on…
Category: Health Data
California State Agency Released Confidential HIV Information: ACLU and Lambda Legal Demand Explanation
Today Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC), and HIV & AIDS Legal Services Alliance (HALSA) sent a letter to David Maxwell-Jolly, Director of the California Department of Health Care Services, demanding a full explanation for the unauthorized and illegal disclosures of confidential identifying information of approximately 5,000 HIV-positive Medi-Cal recipients….
California hospital fined $250k for tardy breach notice to state (updated)
If you’re supposed to report a breach to the state of California, you’d darn well better report it in a timely fashion. HealthLeaders Media reports that Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University has been fined $250,000 by the California Department of Public Health for failing to report a patient records breach <del>by April 23</del>. The…
Fi: Data protection breached most often by nosy co-workers
The other day I posted something about data protection of healthcare records in Finland. That report indicated that breaches in the private healthcare sector were more common than in the public healthcare sector. Today’s Helsinki Times discusses the Ombudsman’s report and sheds some additional light on the nature and extent of breaches there: “Disputes in…
Follow-up: South Shore Hospital Reports Findings from Investigation into Missing Back-Up Computer Files
A statement from South Shore Hospital posted today on their web site reveals the names of other entities involved in the sequence of events in a recent breach and reports their conclusions following their investigation: South Shore Hospital today announced that it has completed its investigation into the loss of its back-up computer files. All available…
Former Humana employee admits to patient ID theft to support drug habit
Seen at American Medical News: An ex-employee of health plan Humana pleaded guilty to illegally obtaining patient information to get prescription painkillers for himself. Jason Browning, 28, of LaGrange, Ky., admitted to illegally obtaining personal information on four Humana members then submitting the data to a pharmacy to obtain prescriptions in their names. He pleaded…