Cathy Locke reports: Sutter Health announced Friday that it is notifying 2,582 patients that personal information was included in electronic versions of billing documents that a former employee emailed to a personal account without authorization. For all but two of the affected patients, no Social Security numbers, financial information or driver’s license data were included,…
Category: Health Data
Highmark’s statement on the Excellus BlueCross BlueShield security breach.
Highmark is alerting its members that their data may have been caught up in the Excellus breach if they obtained services from BCBS while traveling in another service area than their primary coverage. Highmark was notified of a data breach involving another large health insurer. We want to ensure that you are also aware of…
MI: Oakland Family Services security breached, 16K clients affected
John Turk reports: Pontiac-based OaklandFamily Services, a community outreach organization, is investigating a security breach that could have affected 16,000 clients in the area. An unknown person gained access to the email account of an employee in July, which resulted in the potential viewing of protected health information. Read more on Daily Tribune. The full text…
NY: Hack of Health Insurer Excellus May Have Exposed 10M Personal Records
AP reports: A health insurer in western New York and affiliates said Wednesday that their computers were targeted last month in a cyberattack that may have provided unauthorized access to more than 10 million personal records. Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, headquartered in Rochester, and Lifetime Healthcare Companies said they’re offering affected individuals in upstate New York…
NZ: Snooping MidCentral Health nurse censured
Janine Rankin reports: A Palmerston North Hospital nurse who snooped on patients’ medical records has been censured by the Health Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal. Elizabeth Raju was sacked in 2014 after a hospital audit revealed the confidentiality breaches. […] The Tribunal rejected Raju’s excuse that there was a culture at the hospital of health professionals looking…
Harbottle Surgery: NHS accused of data protection breach
Is this a case of good intentions paving the road to a data protection breach? Can the NHS just transfer a patient’s records to another practice without the patient’s consent, even if they mean well? BBC reports: NHS bosses have been accused of breaking data protection law by passing on medical records without consent. Harbottle…