Amy Leigh Womack reports that Bridgette Williams of Macon, Georgia pleaded guilty last week in federal court to charges she stole identities of blood plasma donors while employed at BioMat USA. Womack and her co-conspirators submitted fraudulent tax returns to the tune of $191,000. According to The Telegraph, she stole more than 130 patients’ identities…
Category: Health Data
What healthcare CIOs need to know from Verizon data breach report
Don Fluckinger reports: The good news: While the annual Verizon-Secret Service 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report shows that hacktivist attacks and state-sponsored espionage are on the rise, overall, healthcare organizations aren’t really prime targets for those kinds of attacks. […] The bad news: The industry has a variety of data breach prevention worries. Healthcare providers have a lot of…
Kmart says some confidential customer information stolen during robbery of Little Rock store
Associated Press reports: Kmart says some customer information may have been compromised during an armed robbery of its store in Little Rock last month. Kmart said Monday that it’s notifying pharmacy customers about the March 17 robbery. The company says the gunman took “electronic media” that backed up the pharmacy’s computer system. Kmart says the…
Glens Falls Hospital and business associate sued over patient records exposure breach
Scott Waldman reports that Glens Falls Hospital has been sued over the patient record exposure breach caused by its business associate, Portal Healthcare Solutions. I had previously discussed this breach, here. The lawsuit was filed as a potential class action lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Saratoga County yesterday on behalf of Dara Halliday and…
AZ: Laptop with patients' info stolen from home
Hillary Davis reports: A burglar swiped a laptop and hard drive containing sensitive medical and personal data for hundreds of mental health patients from Yuma and across the state. Alicia Z. Aguirre is the general counsel for Yuma’s Arizona Counseling and Treatment Services, a contracted provider with Cenpatico Behavioral Health of Arizona. It was one…
Follow-up: Auckland district health board disciplined more than 30 staff members for snooping
Back in October, I noted a case involving staff at Auckland City Hospital improperly accessing and circulating the x-rays of a man who had an eel up his rectum. Radio New Zealand has the follow-up: A six month investigation has found 33 doctors, nurses and other staff breached the man’s privacy after he turned up at Auckland…