Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times has an article on how medical transcription services are outsourced. Jeff Drummond of HIPAA Blog doesn’t have a problem with that and doesn’t see much risk if the info is mainly medical and not financial. I would bet that for many people, the risk of their sensitive medical…
Proposed breach notification rule would affect more health vendors
Bob Brewin reports: Rules proposed by the Federal Trade Commission on April 16 on disclosure of breaches of personal health information would greatly expand the number of companies that would be subject to notifying individuals if their personal health data was exposed because records were lost or stolen, or because a hacker broke into a…
HHS Releases Guidance for Securing Health Information and Preventing Harm From Breaches
nbsp; Barbara Kram reports: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published guidance regarding technologies and methodologies to secure health information and prevent harm by rendering health information unusable, unreadable, or indecipherable to unauthorized individuals. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act required publication of the guidance by April 18. This builds on…
Wal-Mart employee data compromised; 48,000 affected
Well, I haven’t found anything more on this from any news source and it’s always odd to find out about a U.S. breach from a non-U.S. source, but International Supermarkets is reporting that: It has come to light that Wal-Mart has suffered a breach in its staff data system due to a former employee leaving…
IN: Personal Documents Found Strewn Along Rural Road
6News reports that thousands of documents containing personal information — including Social Security numbers and financial information — were found on a rural road. The files appear to have come from DFS Capital Funding.
Iowa Supreme Court: Parents cannot access minor child's mental health records if it is not in the best interests of the child
The Associated Press has an article about a court case in Iowa with important implications for the privacy of mental health records of minors in Iowa.  The issue before the court was: The issue we must decide is whether a divorced parent with legal custody can obtain her children’s mental health records by presenting…