Amanda Baumfeld of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports: When stories about hospital privacy breaches turn into lawsuits, there’s usually a celebrity name attached. Britney Spears, Farrah Fawcett and Nadya Suleman have all claimed medical staffs snooped through their confidential records. But celebrities aren’t the only ones alleging violation of their privacy. A second- grade…
Category: Health Data
UK: DoH blocks data breach database
Meanwhile, over in the UK: The government has blocked proposals for it to collect and publish data on all NHS security breaches, GP can reveal. In a letter to ministers, written last year and released under the Freedom of Information Act, DoH director of IT implementation Richard Jeavons argued that disciplining offences was the ‘responsibility…
Medical Problems Could Include Identity Theft
Walecia Konrad of the New York Times reports: Brandon Sharp, a 37-year-old manager at an oil and gas company in Houston, has never had any real health problems and, luckily, he has never stepped foot in an emergency room. So imagine his surprise a few years ago when he learned he owed thousands of dollars…
UK:Patient records stolen – but patients not told
Nick Spoors of Northampton Chronicle reports: The personal information of up to 100 Northampton NHS patients was lost after a community nurse’s motorbike was stolen – but the patients were never told, it has been revealed. According to NHS Northamptonshire board papers released this week, the GP surgery-based nurse was visiting a home in Park…
OR: OHSU Alerts Patients After Laptop Stolen
Oregon Health & Science University is contacting 1,000 patients after a physician’s laptop was stolen from a car parked at the doctor’s Washington County home. Patient names, treatment dates, short medical treatment summaries and medical record numbers were stored on the computer, said OHSU spokesman Jim Newman in a news release. The computer was password-protected…
HI: Woman Posted Online HIV Patient Record
A young mother has been sent to jail for stealing confidential medical records from work then posting that information online for the world to see. The records belong to a woman living with HIV. The defense asked for no jail time, while the prosecutor wanted a month behind bars. But the judge said the crime…