From the Executive Summary of a newly released report: WHAT WE FOUND Nearly all hospitals with EHR technology had RTI-recommended audit functions in place, but they may not be using them to their full extent. In addition, all hospitals employed a variety of RTI-recommended user authorization and access controls. Nearly all hospitals were using RTI-recommended…
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Texas to launch nation's first privacy and Security Certification "safe harbor"
Lynn Sessions and Cory J. Fox of Baker Hostetler write: The Texas Health Services Authority (THSA) recently announced its selection of the Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) Common Security Framework (CSF), the most widely adopted information privacy and security framework in the U.S. healthcare industry, to form the basis of the Texas Covered Entity Privacy…
Privacy Group Testifies on Patient Data Matching
Initial findings from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on ways to match patients with their data do address problems with current HIT systems and data exchanges, notes advocacy organization Patient Privacy Rights. But there isn’t much else in the findings that the organization agrees with. In testimony at an ONC…
Get customers' OK before auctioning off PHI, HHS lawyers tell MedLab
Anthony Brino writes: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act could end up halting parts of a laboratory company’s bankruptcy auction, if a federal judge in Delaware agrees with the Department of Health and Human Services. Lawyers for HHS filed a protective objection in Delaware bankruptcy court December 18, arguing that Laboratory Partners, Inc. [aka…
iPharmacy app gets negative review from Appthority (updated to reflect problems addressed)
Update of February 2014: The developers took the negative review seriously and fixed the problems, appthority reports, here. Original post: Appthority has posted its review of iPharmacy Drug Guide and Pill ID, which they note has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times from Google Play. From their review: Appthority Trust Score: 60 (out of 100 possible)/policy enforced…
Calgary pharmacist used private health information to hit on patient: report
The Canadian Press reports: Alberta’s privacy commissioner has sharp words for a pharmacist who used a patient’s information to try to build a relationship with her on Facebook. Commissioner Jill Clayton says the Calgary pharmacist misused health information for personal purposes when he called the woman twice in 2012 after she filled prescriptions with him,…