Security

Insecure IT systems have left hospitals lousy with viruses and malware. Implantable medical devices are vulnerable to hackers and cyber criminals. How real is the danger? And what's being done to fight it?

Idaho State University will pay $400,000 to the U.S. Department of Health Human Services to settle alleged violations of the HIPAA Security Rule. The settlement comes after ISU's Pocatello Family Medicine Clinic disabled server firewall protections for a period of at least 10 months, resulting in the breach of electronic protected health information for some 17,500 patients.

Anand Shroff, CTO of Health Fidelity, explains the most fundamental misconception about cloud computing in regard to data security and privacy. He also addresses how data-driven healthcare can improve care coordination.

The HIPAA Privacy and Security final rule -- also known as the HIPAA Omnibus Rule -- became effective March 26. One expert predicts enforcers will have a heyday with expanded ability to crack down on providers and their business associates.

With big data promising enormous clinical and financial rewards for healthcare, but posing just as many technical and strategic challenges, the Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2) has published a study mapping the way forward for providers at the starting line.

Creating policy recommendations for HIE data query and response that reduces "real or perceived barriers," without being overly prescriptive, is the privacy and security "Tiger Team" subcommittee's task at hand in the coming months.

After McKesson, Cerner, Allscripts, Greenway and athenahealth made news at HIMSS13 with the launch of the CommonWell Health Alliance, Healthcare IT News spoke with McKesson CEO John Hammergren about the road ahead. Joining Hammergren in the discussion were David McCallie and Arien Malec.

Chief information officers, chief privacy officers, chief compliance officers and all those assorted other assorted C-level titles charged with locking down health information security have a lot on their plates nowadays. Now they’ve got something else to think about.

Already this year, healthcare providers have launched 106 new accountable care organizations (ACOs) that will reach as many as four million beneficiaries, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Jan. 10.

2013 has already proved to be a big year for patient privacy. HHS released the long-awaited HIPAA final rule. Legislation that would regulate how mHealth app developers collect data was drafted. And the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) started the year off with stricter enforcement relating to privacy breaches.