Robert Schoenberger reports: Towards Employment, a Cleveland non-profit agency that has helped more than 100,000 low-income residents and ex-convicts find jobs over the past 36 years, is warning its clients that they are at risk for identity theft. Last month, a thief stole a Towards Employment laptop that held a database with the names, addresses and…
Ca: Hospital-record outsourcing raises privacy, safety fears
Kathy Tomlinson reports: A Vancouver man who transcribes medical records for a living says patients have reason to worry about the privacy and accuracy of their medical information. Donan Forde says that’s because all dictated reports by hospital physicians in B.C.’s Lower Mainland will soon be transcribed by private contractors, accessing and working on records…
Ca: Class action launched against N.S. hospitals for privacy breach
An update to a breach affecting Roseway Hospital, reported previously on this blog. Eva Hoare reports: A Halifax law firm has started a class action against a provincial health authority after a worker accessed the private medical records of hundreds of South Shore patients. […] An investigation into the records breach, made public in mid-June,…
BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina notifies members of mailing breach
Somehow, BCBS of North Carolina mailed out about 100 members’ old PHI to new members in their new member packets. BCBS is blaming a software glitch. Read more on Examiner.com
Australian Federal Police Issue Warnings to 6 Youths Over Cyber Activity
Over the past months we have seen Australia becoming a target for hackers, as well as this we have seen many young hackers surfacing from the suburbs around Australia. Today the Australian federal police have now confirmed that 6 youths from Sydney, Brisbane and Perth have been issued warnings over suspicious online activities. Now this is how it should be done,…
Death by HIPAA
Jane Yakowitz writes: Vioxx, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug once prescribed for arthritis, was on the market for over five years before it waswithdrawn from the market in 2004. Though a group of small-scale studies had found a correlation between Vioxx and increased risk of heart attack, the FDA did not have convincing evidence until it completed…