Sometimes I find a breach listed on HHS’s public breach tool, but it’s a while before I can find out what happened. Such was the case with a breach reported by Michael S. Benjamin, MD, a California physician specializing in hematology and oncology. On December 28, Dr. Benjamin notified HHS of a breach affecting 1,300…
Category: Health Data
Alaska Orthopedic Specialists Notifies Patients of Security Incident
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jan. 22, 2016 — Alaska Orthopedic Specialists has sent notification to all affected patients about a security incident involving information that was taken by a former non-physician employee. In March of 2015, Alaska Orthopedic Specialists, Inc., closed its medical practice in Anchorage, Alaska. In the course of closing the business later that year, the practice discovered that the…
AU: Hack attack on a hospital IT system highlights the risk of still running Windows XP
Robert Merkel writes: A virus attack on the computer system of one of Melbourne’s largest hospital networks is cause for concern because it affected machines running Microsoft’s Windows XP, an operating system no longer supported by the software giant. A report this week in The Age said a “computer virus” has affected Windows XP systems across the…
Compromised email account exposed patient info from Brigham and Women’s and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospitals
Brigham and Women’s and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospitals, who reported a phishing incident in April 2015, are reporting another incident involving the compromise of an employee’s email account. How the login credentials were compromised is not reported. In a statement posted to their website, they provide other details: On November 13, 2015, Brigham learned that…
Nursing Assistant Fired, Charged After Posting Nude Video of 93-Year-Old on Snapchat
by Charles Ornstein ProPublica, Jan. 19, 2016, 1:36 p.m. A former nursing assistant at a Wisconsin assisted-living facility has been charged with a felony for allegedly taking a video of a mostly naked resident and posting it on Snapchat — the latest in a series of cases in which dehumanizing photos of seniors have been…
Ca: Nurse accused of snooping into patient records loses bid for secret hearing
Theresa Boyle reports: A nurse accused of invading patients’ privacy by snooping into their medical records has lost her bid to have her disciplinary hearing held in secret. A disciplinary panel of the College of Nurses of Ontario denied Mandy Edgerton-Reid’s request to exclude the public, including the media, from a hearing into allegations that…