Kevin Rector reports: Sitting around a broad table in a nondescript office in Reisterstown (Maryland) last week, more than a dozen mental health advocates, medical professionals and law enforcement officials stared tensely at one another. Nearly a month after the state-created task force issued a report outlining its findings on psychiatric patients’ access to firearms,…
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New HIPAA Requirements for Business Associates and Their Subcontractors
Helpful write-up by Dena Feldman on the final HITECH rule as it applies to business associates and subcontractors includes: Direct Liability under the Security Rule. The final rule alters the regulations to expressly subject business associates to the administrative, physical, and technical safeguard requirements of the Security Rule. HHS commented that, because business associates previously had…
Australian Firefighters Ingest Data-Transmitting Pills When They Go To Work
Shaunacy Ferro reports that Australia is monitoring firefighter’s biodata on the job: A new data-delivering pill could help firefighters monitor their reactions to heat stress, a new trial in Australia shows. Heat stress can lead to various problems for firefighters working in hot environments, including unconsciousness and cardiac arrest, and the standard method of measuring…
Docs 'n guns
I’ve previously noted a Florida law that prohibited doctors from inquiring whether there was a gun in a patient’s home. In my opinion, the Firearm Owners ‘ Privacy Act was, and is, a terrible law, and interferes with health care professionals’ attempts to routinely screen for environmental factors that may, at some point, become a safety risk…
Web Hunt for DNA Sequences Leaves Privacy Compromised
Gina Kolata reports: The genetic data posted online seemed perfectly anonymous — strings of billions of DNA letters from more than 1,000 people. But all it took was some clever sleuthing on the Web for a genetics researcher to identify five people he randomly selected from the study group. Not only that, he found their entire families,…
Patient data – and lives – at risk from security vulnerabilities
Hacks involving medical systems and databases scare me. The potential for malicious harm is huge. Despite the fact that we’ve known about the risks since the 1983 hack of Sloan-Kettering, and despite the fact that we received some troubling reminders recently with demonstrations involving pacemakers or insulin pumps, the healthcare sector still lags behind the…