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A quick pointer to an article by Radley Balko that looks at the medical ethics questions raised by the David Eckert case, which I discussed here. It’s interesting to note that the medical ethics experts Balko interviewed pretty much said the same thing I had said in my post.

Shlachter, Baker & Fuquay write: Electronic health records are all the rage these days. The value of enabling medical researchers to mine the data to discover, say, more cost-effective treatments or to catch a communicable disease is pretty clear. But there could be a few less-scrupulous uses of that information, too, given that each of…

On  October 30, PHIprivacy.net linked to an article on PCMag that described a review of an app, Calculate, by QxMD. The reviewer, Appthority, had found that “the registration and setup sends the doctor information, such as name, e-mail, and location over the network in plaintext,” despite the app’s assurance that all information was encrypted. At the time,…

On October 24, Rotech Healthcare, Inc. reported a data security breach to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that involved some health information. According to their letter to the state, on August 30, they learned that a former employee  took some files with her when she left the firm on November 26, 2010. Those files contained…

I came across a case in Texas on FourthAmendment.com that gave me food for thought.  From Owens v. State 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 13767 (Tex. App. – Houston (1st Dist.) November 7, 2013): In State v. Hardy, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the State’s subpoena of the results of blood tests conducted by private…

Here’s a run-down of the 29 breaches HHS added to its breach tool today,  organized by those we already knew about vs. ones that we didn’t know about. With today’s additions, the breach counter on HHS for breaches affecting over 500 patients stands at 711 since September 23, 2009 when HITECH reporting requirements went into…