Maybe I should start a column just about the “small” HIPAA breaches I seem to trip over on a too-frequent basis. Today’s entry occurred in the waiting area of an outpatient endoscopy/colonoscopy service. I was sitting and chatting with another woman as we waited for our respective spouses. Out came a doctor, who walked up…
Category: Health Data
PA: Local Doctor Sues After Electronic Billing Co. Loses Data (Updated)
Marty Griffin reports: Dr. Bhola Roy is a board certified internist. These days he spends hour after hour on his computer, ordered by Medicare to file all of his records electronically. “Medicare is mandating to us, we have to use electronic health records,” he said. That mandate went horribly wrong, when in a lawsuit, Dr….
Deal reached over doc's privacy breach
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Joelle Dally reports on a case similar in some respects to cases I’ve recently mentioned on this blog involving Northern Inyo Hospital and the Guthrie clinic: The Canterbury District Health Board appears to have reached a deal to avoid legal action over a doctor’s 2007 privacy breach. The case could have…
Follow-up: Can a clinic be held liable for employee's bad acts?
And speaking of how much a health care facility can do about a rogue employee and whether they are responsible or liable, there is an update to a case I first noted here in 2011 involving a Guthrie Healthcare System clinic in Corning, New York. In that case, a nurse willfully disclosed a patient’s information on…
"Small" breach, big harm.
I recently noted a privacy breach at Northern Inyo Hospital in California. It was one of those “small breaches” (i.e., less than 500 affected) that don’t get reported on HHS’s public-facing breach tool, but it really created distress for its victim. In discussing the breach, I noted my surprise at a statement the patient made…
NC DHHS begins notifying clients of breach that went on for years
Friday, November 8, 2013 Raleigh, N.C. – In 2009, pursuant to Executive Order No. 4, Governor Beverly Perdue directed the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) to build and maintain NC OpenBook in order to create a searchable website on State spending for grants and contracts. The Perdue Administration then began posting information in NC…