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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Audit cites UIHC for lacking encryption
Tara Bannow reports: About half of the more than 500 laptops issued to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics employees last summer did not have encryption software to protect sensitive information, a deputy state auditor said Monday. A state of Iowa auditor’s office report released Monday described how the lack of encryption software on some…
Your medical records are in a dumpster in another state. Now what?
Melissa Payne reports that a man in the Shoals (Alabama) found thousands of medical files from a doctor’s office in Virginia in dumpsters around town. How they wound up in Florence, Alabama is anyone’s guess at this point. “It’s concerning because there are phone numbers, birth dates, addresses, social security numbers in these files,” said…
Office intern at Jacksonville primary care center charged with ID theft
Here we go again: a cellphone being used to steal patient info. Dana Treen reports: Names and Social Security numbers of 261 people were illegally photographed at a Shands Jacksonville clinic then transmitted to another person, according to an arrest report in the case. Daremia Nikeka Crews, 24, of the 5300 block of Saginaw Avenue…
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…
At long last, HHS unveils Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules
From their press release: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) moved forward today to strengthen the privacy and security protections for health information established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The final omnibus rule greatly enhances a patient’s privacy protections, provides individuals new rights to their health…