Reported in the New Hampshire Business Review: The New Hampshire House narrowly defeated a bill that would have required additional privacy restrictions on electronic medical records, which hospitals have said were too costly. The bill would have extended the federal privacy rights known as HIPAA to business associates, such as software vendors, and restrict access…
Category: Health Data
CDC awards three contracts for NHIN development
Nancy Ferris writes in Government Health IT: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded three contacts for health information exchanges to develop data-sharing operations, with an emphasis on delivering data to public health authorities. The contract awards, totaling $38 million, were made in conjunction with the program led by the Office of the…
IT Security and Record Management in Healthcare
Dr. Zachary Peterson, a Senior Security Analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, writes: With the introduction of computers to the health care system, paper medical records have given way to their electronic counterparts, allowing information to be easily accessed, shared and modified. Systems for managing electronic records are now commonplace in all major and health care…
Doctor Blogs Raise Concerns About Patient Privacy
Deirdre Kennedy writes on NPR: Medical blogs have drawn back the curtain on the inner workings of the health care profession. Online readers can learn about the latest medical gadgets, read physicians’ views on health care issues, even get a peek at the inner thoughts of surgeons. But despite their attraction, these blogs have raised…
UK: "No one to blame" for patient info leak
Tomasz Johnson reports in the Hendon Times: Investigations into how confidential patient records were found in a Potters Bar road have failed to attribute blame for the security breach. Details of serious illnesses and outpatient forms belonging to patients at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Whipps Cross University Hospital and London Ambulance Service ended up strewn across…
UK: Counselling Service admits breach of trust after releasing over 300 emails
Raf Sanchez reports in Nouse: The University Counselling Service [at York University] has admitted a “serious breach of trust†after releasing the email addresses of over three hundred students and staff taking counselling. The addresses were accidentally put in the cc field of an email sent out on February 22 to 344 people on the…