Steve Barrie reports: The private medical records of more than 1,300 patients and/or their guarantors were endangered for a time earlier this month when a Loma Linda University Medical Center employee took home documents against hospital policy. The records have been secured and the employee fired, said Briana Pastorino, spokeswoman for the medical center, in…
Category: Health Data
UK: Patient details leaked at Midlands hospitals
Patients’ personal details have been leaked dozens of times at hospitals in the Black Country and Staffordshire – including a computer being hacked into and a foster mother’s address being handed to the child’s parent – it was revealed today. There have been 38 data breaches across the region’s NHS hospitals trusts in the past…
IL: Woman sentenced to four years for aggravated identity theft
The Rock River Times reports: Elizabeth Schmidtke, 27, pled guilty to aggravated identity theft and was sentenced to four years in the Illinois Department of Corrections Dec. 16. In May 2011, City of Rockford detectives began an investigation into photocopied checks that were located in another state but belonged to patients at a local medical…
Senate Hearings Focus on Lack of HIPAA Enforcement, Final HITECH Rule
Rachel Grunberger writes: The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and Law recently held a hearing to discuss federal enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, entitled “Your Health and Your Privacy: Protecting Health Information in a Digital World.” In…
TN: Woman Finds Bags Of Detailed Medical Records In A Dumpster
Adam Ghassemi reports: Last week, while unloading debris at the Sumner County Resource Authority a woman found a lot more than just trash. “It’s totally reckless,” said a Sumner County woman who doesn’t want her identity revealed. She says she hopes what she did protects the identities of countless others. “It’s just unbelievable what could…
Update: Stolen St. Charles laptop recovered
A laptop stolen from a St. Charles employee’s car in late October has been recovered. The laptop contained personal information from about 140 patients who had been in the emergency room at St. Charles Bend or Redmond. A forensic analysis indicated that someone had attempted to access the laptop but was unable to do so,…