Carolyne Park reports in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: A Trumann woman who pleaded guilty to disclosing a patient’s health information is the first person in Arkansas to be convicted under a 5-year-old federal law designed to protect patient privacy, authorities said Wednesday. Andrea Smith, a 25-year-old licensed practical nurse, pleaded guilty to wrongfully disclosing a patient’s…
Category: Health Data
Warning on Storage of Health Records
Steve Lohr writes in the New York Times: In an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, two leading researchers warn that the entry of big companies like Microsoft and Google into the field of personal health records could drastically alter the practice of clinical research and raise new challenges to the privacy of…
Tokyo hospital computer feared stolen / PC contained confidential information on 17,000 electrocardiography patients
A computer containing personal information on about 17,000 patients has disappeared from Nippon Medical School Hospital in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, sources in the hospital said Wednesday. The data concern patients who have received electrocardiography over the past decade, and include their names, conditions, test results and patient ID numbers–but did not include addresses or…
Consumer groups urge "do not track" registry
Two consumer groups asked the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday to create a “do not track list” that would allow computer users to bar advertisers from collecting information about them. The Consumer Federation of America and the Consumers Union also urged the FTC to bar collection of health information and other sensitive data by companies…
Ca: Province Bans Health Data Use for MR
In British Columbia, Canada, new legislation has been passed which according to Health Minister George Abbott, prohibits disclosure of information from electronic databases for market research and allows individuals access to their own health records and medical information. Abbott says that British Columbia is the first province in Canada to create such a legal framework…
NZ: Health workers "blasé" about HIV disclosure
GayNZ.com reports: “Blasé” health care workers are too often divulging the confidential HIV status of their patients and broader data sharing within the medical fraternity is also leading to unwanted HIV status disclosures, according to HIV positive people. As a result, the Privacy Commissioner is urging health care workers to reflect on the way they…