Canadian Press reports: The health authority on Vancouver Island says an employee who had nothing to do with the care of 39 patients accessed their health records out of curiosity about friends or neighbours. Suzanne Germain, of Island Health, said an investigation began last November after allegations that a longtime worker was looking at confidential…
Category: Health Data
There’s TOO MANY data-leaking healthcare firms, growls Symantec
Darren Pauli reports: Security software company Symantec is being drenched in calls from breached health organisations that have lost devices or suffered an information security snafu. Some 80 per cent of the calls its incident response team has received since December are from healthcare firms, topping the charts for the number of breach incidents for 2014 for…
Texas Doctor Sentenced to Prison for Health Care Fraud Scheme
If you were ever a patient at one of these hospitals, you might want to get your medical records and check them for accuracy. Also check your Explanation of Benefits from your insurer to make sure that your records accurately reflect services you received and for what. Previous coverage of this case can be found…
CA: Stanislaus Surgical Hospital discloses breach
I am never happy when a breach notification letter tells you there’s been an “incident,” but they don’t actually tell you what the incident was. Today’s example: a breach notification from Stanislaus Surgical Hospital in Modesto, California. It might have been a hack from their description, but then again, could it be that someone stole patient…
CA: Hundreds Of Dental Records Found In Vacant Building
Christine O’Donnell reports that hundreds of dental records with patients’ addresses, insurance information, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and drivers license numbers were found in what appears to be a vacant building in Orange. Of concern, the building has broken windows and homeless people have been observed going in and out of it for a while…
Plaintiffs’ attorneys in lawsuit against Johns Hopkins awarded $32.8 million
There’s another development in a patient privacy breach that I had covered on PHIprivacy.net. The case involved a doctor, Nikita Levy, who surreptitiously filmed his female patients during pelvic examinations. The doctor committed suicide after a co-worker tipped the hospital as to what was going on. Johns Hopkins subsequently offered counseling services to those impacted…