In the first HIPAA prosecution in the Western District of Pennsylvania, United States Attorney David J. Hickton announced this week that a resident of Monroeville, Pa., had been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on charges of multiple illegal disclosures and use of patient individually identifiable health information for personal gain. The Health…
Category: Health Data
CA: 33,000 patient records sold for the value of the paper
I saw this press release on the breach I mentioned yesterday on PHIprivacy.net where a janitor allegedly sold 14 boxes of patient records to a recycler for the value of the paper although I cannot find a copy of this press release on either the DHS web site or the LASD web site: The Los…
Anthem Blue Cross is sued over data security breach
Duke Helfand reports: An applicant for Anthem Blue Cross insurance has sued the giant insurer over allegations that it failed to protect his confidential information from computer hackers who gained access to the company’s internal records earlier this year. The lawsuit, filed by Patrick Magorien of Sacramento, stems from a security breach involving attorneys who…
When your database of all staff is on a flash drive that goes missing…
On boy…. On September 9, Cooper University Hospital in New Jersey notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that a flash drive with a database of employees’ personal information was discovered missing on July 8, less than 24 hours after the database had been copied to the drive. The drive went missing from the Graduate…
Janitor at L.A. County health clinic allegedly stole files for recycling money
Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports: A janitor at the Martin Luther King Jr. Multi-Service Ambulatory Care Center in Willowbrook has been charged with felony commercial burglary for allegedly selling 14 boxes of patient records to a recycling center, authorities said Thursday. The boxes contained computer printouts of about 30,000 patient names, addresses, phone numbers and medical record…
HOW many patient privacy breaches per month?
As regular readers know, I tend to avoid blogging about commercial products and am leery about reporting results from studies that might be self-serving, but a new paper from FairWarning has some data that I think are worth mentioning here. In their report, they provide some baseline data on how many patient privacy breaches…