Northwest Primary Care (NWPC) is notifying certain patients about a security incident involving information that was stolen by a former employee. On October 13, 2015, NWPC was informed by law enforcement that the employee stole patient names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and credit card numbers. The theft occurred between April 2013 and December 2013. The employee…
Category: Health Data
High-Risk Security Vulnerabilities Identified During Reviews of Information System General Controls at Three California Managed-Care Organizations Raise Concerns About the Integrity of Systems Used To Process Medicaid Claims
From the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services: We summarized the high-risk security vulnerabilities that we identified as audit findings in our previous reviews of information system general controls at three California Medi Cal managed-care organizations (MCOs). We identified 74 high-risk security vulnerabilities in the information system…
1,500 patients impacted by laptop theft
Another physician has reported that a stolen laptop contained patient information. Carolyn B Lyde, MD, of Dermatology Center of Lewisville, Texas, notified HHS on November 30th that 1,500 patients were affected. There is no statement on their web site at this time and a Google search isn’t turning up any notices.
OH: More details emerge about patient records found at recycling center
Katie Wedell provides more details about patient records found at a recycling center in Springfield, Ohio It seems the person who found the records and reported that there were “hundreds” of records underestimated how many there were. Community Mercy Health Partners could face penalties from the federal government for improperly disposing of private medical records after thousands of old laboratory…
UK: Former medical center director prosecuted for improper access of colleagues’ records
From the Information Commissioner’s Office: A former medical centre practice director Zita Driaunevicius-Cookson has been prosecuted at Bury & Rochdale Magistrates’ Court for accessing the medical records of colleagues and members of their family without consent. She was fined £300, ordered to pay costs of £434.73 and a victim surcharge of £20.
Small-Scale Violations of Medical Privacy Often Cause the Most Harm
Note: the following article was reported by Charles Ornstein of ProPublica, Dec. 10, 2015, 5 a.m. and is reproduced under Creative Commons license. Although Ornstein did not mention it in his reporting, the case of Tami Matteson was previously covered on this site in 2013 in a post entitled ” ‘Small’ breach, big harm.” In that article,…