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…
Category: Health Data
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…
Ex-director of Baton Rouge drug rehab admits to using patient info to get prescription pills
There’s an update to a case noted previously on this site. Emily Lane reports that Shanta Barnes pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to charges of health care fraud and aggravated identity theft. The scheme, according U.S. Attorney Walt Green’s office, started in June 2009, at the latest, and lasted less than a year at the facility…
Even encrypted medical record databases leak information
Jeremy Kirk reports: A new study from Microsoft researchers warns that many types of databases used for electronic medical records are vulnerable to leaking information despite the use of encryption. The paper, due to be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security next month, shows how sensitive medical information on patients could be…