John K. Wisniewski, the CEO/executive director of the Bexar County Medical Society, is not happy with Texas’s new law (HB 300) that goes into effect this month. The law goes beyond what HIPAA requires: The changes begin with a broadened definition of “covered entities,” to include almost anyone who handles protected health information. This may…
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When you only look at part of the elephant: Data breach winners and losers by state
Erin McCann has an article on data breaches in the healthcare sector: So who are the biggest offenders by state? Generally, states with the highest population have the highest number of data breaches. For instance, California and Texas top the list, banking the highest number of data breaches in the nation. However, when population is…
Privacy & Security Training Games
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) Office of the Chief Privacy Officer (OCPO) has released its first web-based security training module, CyberSecure: Your Medical Practice. Play the Game Now . The security training module, which was developed with the assistance of the Regional Extension Center Program’s Privacy and Security Community of Practice,…
Would Patient Ownership of Health Data Improve Confidentiality?
Barbara J. Evans, PhD, JD, LLM writes: Modern testing technology can extract a wealth of information from the merest speck of a person—a biospecimen—and information systems can transmit entire medical records at the click of a mouse. Given these capabilities, confidentiality—the notion that information patients share during medical treatment should not be disclosed to others…
The Fourth Amendment and your medical records
FourthAmendment.com quotes from a new opinion from U.S. District Court in Maryland holding that there is no Fourth Amendment reasonable expectation of privacy in medical records held by a doctor. The case is United States v. Mitchell. Oops: corrected the above as I had omitted a critical “no.”
Ca: Internal Audit at University of Victoria Over Potential Privacy Breach (updated)
cmclean writes: The University of Victoria has launched in an internal audit into allegations of conflict interest and breach of privacy involving the Health Ministry. The government contracts with UVIC to conduct research on prescription drugs and the Health Ministry shares patient information with the university. The province believes that information may have been shared…