Denis Campbell reports: The NHS has been warned to beware of computer hackers after it was targeted by the same group that conducted cyber assaults on Sony and Nintendo. Hospital trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) across England have been alerted to the security breach by Connecting for Health, the Department of Health’s IT branch,…
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Compromise Reached on Maine Health Data Privacy
Associated Press is reporting: A new law will give about two-thirds of Maine’s population a choice on whether to keep their medical records on an independent computer database. A compromise bill, LD 1337, that quietly worked its way to enactment, requires that Maine residents whose medical records are stored in the HealthInfoNet database get an opportunity…
Greater patient access to records proposed
Kelly Kennedy reports: A proposed federal rule would require hospitals, doctors’ offices and health insurers to tell patients of anyone who has accessed their electronic medical records, if requested. Under the rule proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), health-care-related businesses must list everyone in their firms — from doctors to data-entry…
12 Steps for Surviving an HHS/OCR Privacy Breach Investigation
From their press release: 12 Steps for Surviving an HHS/OCR Privacy Breach Investigation Free Interactive Tool and Checklist for Healthcare Organizations, from ID Experts, Available At http://www2.idexpertscorp.com/breach-tools/ocr-survival-tool/ The U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has been cracking down on its enforcement of the HIPAA/HITECH Privacy, Security and Data…
Florida's Gov. Rick Scott signs bill into law for prescription monitoring database
Janet Zink and Justin George report that Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill Friday that creates a prescription drug monitoring database. As is often the case, the intentions are good – to stem a growing problem with the abuse of prescription painkillers. But as is also often the case, the database poses privacy and security…
UK: Doctors asked to identify potential terrorists under government plans
Alan Travis reports: Doctors and other health professionals will be asked to identify people who are “vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism” as part of the government’s redrawn counter-terrorism programme to be detailed on Tuesday. […] One “key message” of the document is that it is not a programme to spy on Muslim communities, but…