The California Department of Public Health recently added a breach report to its web site involving California Hospital Medical Center – LA. According to their report of November 2010, in May 2010, the police department discovered face sheets with 102 patients’ names, financial, insurance, and diagnostic information in the trunk of a patient accounts representative’s…
Category: Health Data
Breach-related lawsuit against Adventist Health dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction
Law360 reports that Adventist Hospital System/Sunbelt Inc. succeeded in getting a federal court to dismiss a potential class action lawsuit against it. As noted previously on this blog, the lawsuit stemmed from employees at Florida Hospital Celebration selling patient information. Adventist had moved to dismiss Richard Faircloth’s lawsuit on grounds that the federal court lacked…
llinois health agency notifies 3,100 Cook County residents of mailing error disclosing PHI
WLS reports: The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services says information on about 3,100 clients in Cook County may have been released. It says a managed care contractor accidentally sent client ID cards to the wrong addresses. The personal information on the Family Health Network ID card included member name, state issued Medicaid number…
Michigan Agency Breaches PHI But Says Not Bound by HIPAA
I was glad to see that Health Data Management followed up on a breach where the entity said it wasn’t a HIPAA breach and had no duty to notify: Responding to questions from Health Data Management, a Michigan Department of Community Health spokesperson said the compromised data “were not medical records and therefore, no notification…
Insider threat, redux
Tampa Bay Times reports: Federal authorities say employees at James A. Haley VA Medical Center and Tampa General Hospital stole patients’ identities in tax fraud schemes. Haley employee David F. Lewis is accused of taking the names and Social Security numbers of dozens of hospital patients and selling the information to people who used it to…
Michigan Cancer Consortium hacked, almost 50,000 notified
No detailed medical records were involved, but the Michigan Department of Community Health is notifying nearly 50,000 affected residents that their PII/PHI may have fallen into the hands of a hacker. CBS Detroit reports the state has sent out letters after computers hosting the Michigan Cancer Consortium website were accessed by hackers. “They were reports…