Evan Schuman reports an update to a breach where a woman’s syphilis diagnosis was posted online: The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has launched a federal probe into HIPAA privacy violations at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, according to an HHS spokesperson. […] The investigation began last week after Healthcare IT News contacted HHS to ask…
Category: Uncategorized
Online Psychotherapy Gains Fans And Raises Privacy Concerns
Maanvi Singh reports on the uptick in online psychotherapy services, but notes that there are concerns not only about efficacy, but licensing and privacy. With respect to privacy, Singh reports: Some studies suggest that therapy online can be as effective as it is face to face. “We have a lot of promising data suggesting that technology can…
Breaches have consequences – eventually?
Triple-S Salud (TSS) is a licensee of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Puerto Rico and handles managed care for Medicare enrollees. In February, the company was fined $6.8M for a breach involving the exposure of over 13,000 insureds’ information in a mailing error. They were also barred from signing up more beneficiaries for their Platino line…
Update: No criminal charges to be filed in Bay Park patient data breach case
Amulya Raghuveer reports: Oregon Police said Friday that they will not file charges against a ProMedica employee after a criminal investigation into a breach of patient data at Bay Park Hospital. The security breach, which was announced by ProMedica in May, was suspected to have compromised personal health information for nearly 600 patients at the…
UK: Oxfordshire County Council signs undertaking after loss of records with sensitive information
An undertaking to comply with the seventh data protection principle has been signed by Oxfordshire County Council. This follows an investigation into a July 2013 incident when a solicitor had removed a number of documents from the office but had dropped these in a street near their home. The documents were found the next day and…
Central City Concern notifies employment access clients of data theft by former employee
Another recent addition to HHS’s public breach tool involved an incident at Central City Concern in Oregon. The breach, which involved “unauthorized access/disclosure” resulted in the notification of 17,914, and was listed as beginning March 23, 2010 and ending May 24, 2013. A notice linked from their homepage saying “Data Event” explains that this was a…