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About [Health] Information Data Protection

4 Responses

1. Ann Miller RN MHA, on January 3, 2013 at 12:36 AM said:

   HHS Targeting Smaller Data Breaches

   In less than three years, around 60,500 “smaller” healthcare data breaches—each affecting the records of fewer than 500 individuals—occurred across the country, and the federal government is setting its sights on providers implicated in these incidents. HHS’ Office for Civil Rights has reached a $50,000 settlement agreement with Hospice of North Idaho, based in Hayden, a suburb of Coeur D’Alene, pertaining to the hospice’s 2010 loss of a laptop computer that contained the records of 441 patients. The Civil Rights Office described the settlement as the first stemming from a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act security-rule violation for a breach affecting fewer than 500 individuals.

   “This action sends a strong message to the healthcare industry that, regardless of size, covered entities must take action and will be held accountable for safeguarding their patients’ health information,” said Leon Rodriguez, director of the Civil Rights Office, in a news release. “Encryption is an easy method for making lost information unusable, unreadable and undecipherable.”

   Source: Joseph Conn, Modern Healthcare [1/2/13]

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2. Ann Miller RN MHA, on July 2, 2014 at 10:47 AM said:

   Health Data Privacy Helped Fuel Supreme Court Cell Phone Ruling

   The possible presence of healthcare data on cell phones helped put the devices in a legal class worthy of heightened constitutional protections from warrantless searches by police, the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. That unanimous decision, while narrowly focused on balancing the privacy rights of individuals and the “legitimate government interests” needed to enforce the law at the time of a person’s arrest, could have broader healthcare implications, healthcare privacy specialists contend.

   The decision could be used as a reference point, highlighting the special nature of healthcare information, as the healthcare industry wrestles to find a similar balance between patients’ consent rights over disclosure of their medical records and the interests of healthcare providers, researchers, and other commercial entities in getting less-fettered access to those records.

   Source: Joseph Conn, Modern Healthcare [6/26/14]

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3. Ann Miller RN MHA, on February 6, 2015 at 4:59 PM said:

   Anthem hack exposes up to 80 million records of subscribers and employees

   Names, birthdays, social security numbers and email addresses have been accessed by what number two insurer Anthem is calling a very sophisticated cyberattack affecting up to 80 million people

   http://managedhealthcareexecutive.modernmedicine.com/managed-healthcare-executive/news/anthem-hack-exposes-records-80-million-subscribers

   Legal: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/anthems-big-data-breach-is-already-sparking-lawsuits/ar-AA94E9A?ocid=iehp

   Ann Miller RN MHA

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4. Anonymous, on April 2, 2024 at 12:41 PM said:

   Google will destroy billions of records to settle a privacy lawsuit.

   The search giant has agreed to wipe data on millions of users’ browsing histories as part of a settlement resolving a class action filed in 2020 that claimed Chrome’s Incognito mode wasn’t nearly as incognito as users were led to believe.

   Google will also update its disclosures about what it tracks and let Incognito users block third-party cookies. The deal, which still requires a judge’s approval, doesn’t include damages for individual users, but attorneys who brought the case say it could be worth as much as $7.8 billion—and the settlement permits individuals to sue for their own damages.

   Tom

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