Todd Maisel, Kerry Burke, and Joe Kemp report: Stacks of paperwork containing personal information — including Social Security numbers — of patients were carelessly dumped on the sidewalk when a Brooklyn medical supply store was shuttered. The landlord said he was unaware of the papers’ sensitivity when he tossed the files outside Landmark Medical Supplies…
Category: Health Data
NY: Medical file probe widens
Bob Gardinier reports: The number of Samaritan Hospital private medical records illegally accessed by Rensselaer County Jail personnel has more than doubled and the period of the probe widened from three to five years, hospital officials say. Read more on Albany Times Union.
St. Albert doctor suspended for privacy breach
Kevin Ma reports: An emergency room doctor from St. Albert has been suspended for at least a month because she illegally tapped into restricted medical files. The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta announced this week that it had found Deanne “Dee” Gayle Watrich, an emergency room doctor and a St. Albert resident, to…
Two HIPAA breaches involving Mid America Health that flew under the media radar
Back on January 3, I blogged about three breach reports I had stumbled across in December. One of them involved an undated substitute notice from Mid America Health concerning a stolen laptop. I had e-mailed Mid America Health in December to ask when the breach had occurred and for more details, but they did not respond to my inquiry…
Patient records found outside an evicted dental clinic in Detroit
Here we go again: After Kelly Plaza Dental Clinic in Detroit received an eviction notice shutting them down, someone cleaned out the premises. Thrown in a dumpster were boxes with patients’ unshredded records that included Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account information, and of course, dental records. Read more on ClickOnDetroit.
2nd Cir Certified Question Raises Medical Privacy Concerns
Robyn Hagan Cain writes: Does the unauthorized disclosure of confidential medical information by a clinic’s employee create a right of action for breach of a fiduciary duty against the clinic under New York law? Does it matter if the blabbermouth employee acted outside the scope of her employment? If she was not the plaintiff’s treating…