Courtney Collins of KARK 4 News reports: How would you feel if your bank account information, social security number and address were available to anyone? For a period of time today, that was a reality for hundreds of central Arkansas dental patients. KARK got a call this afternoon from a concerned worker at a Little…
Category: Health Data
UK: Fears as GP’s laptop stolen
A laptop containing confidential medical records of all 11,000 Wolverhampton patients at a city surgery has been stolen from a GP’s house, police revealed today. Names, dates of birth, addresses and contact details were all stored and unencrypted on the PC belonging to a doctor from Castlecroft Medical Practice. Full story at Express & Star
Bill Allowing Medical Privacy Intrusion Fails in Sacramento
A bill allowing marketers hired by drug companies to secretly access patient prescription drug records failed to get a single “yes” in a key vote Tuesday in the Assembly Health Committee. Though some members who did not vote could technically cast votes before the end of the day, the failure of the measure (SB1096 by…
HIPAA Creating Barriers to Research and Discovery
The Association of Academic Health Centers has released a paper that concludes that HIPAA is a significant obstacle to biomedical research. From their paper [pdf]: Recommendations In order to ensure that American science can flourish, there is a need to address HIPAA-related barriers that are impeding research. The AAHC recommends the following: The Department of…
Local Man Sentenced For Deleting Medical Records
A disgruntled worker is paying the price for deleting medical records, 10News reported. Jon Paul Oson, of Chula Vista, was sentenced to more than 5 years in prison for hacking into the database of a local health clinic. It was the very person trusted to protect the Council of Community Health Clinics who went on…
ONCHIT hires tech firm to tackle medical identity theft problem
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has awarded approximately $450,000 to Booz Allen Hamilton, a strategy and consulting technology firm, to assess and evaluate the scope of the medical identity theft problem in the United States. The purpose of the…