Privacy & Security
HIPAA "has seen a lot of action lately," said Susan McAndrew, deputy director for health information privacy at the Department for Health and Human Services' Office For Civil Rights, at HIMSS14 on Monday.
Protecting your hospital's data is no longer just about managing the systems inside your enterprise. Changes being considered in federal privacy regulations are prompting the legal counsel at many hospitals to begin looking at the security policies of contractors and even sub-contractors.
Who's responsible when a medical device breaks down or is hacked -- the manufacturer who made it or the healthcare provider who's using it?
The findings of a new HIMSS healthcare security report have been released, and the data may surprise you.
Electronic Health Records
IT security is complicated, made even more so by the dynamic nature of technology and the ever challenging threat landscape. It may be best to think of IT security as a chronic illness, a condition that requires ongoing treatment, testing, and re-evaluations.
Onsite Occupational Health and Safety has tapped UPMC to provide second opinions and medical consultations in Afghanistan via telemedicine services.
Whether looking to draw attention to their practices, experiment with new technology or simply have a bit of fun with their otherwise dreary financial operations, several American medical professionals are now accepting bitcoins, the Web-based virtual currency, in addition to dollars.
Last month, the Identity Theft Resource Center produced a survey showing that medical-related identity theft accounted for 43 percent of all identity thefts reported in the United States in 2013. According to HHS, the theft of a computer or other electronic device is involved in more than half of medical-related security breaches.
In one of the biggest HIPAA security breaches reported, hackers accessed a server from a Texas healthcare system, compromising the protected health information of some 405,000 individuals.
The ONC's Health IT Policy Committee's Privacy and Security Tiger Team is calling for public comment on privacy and policy concerns surrounding patients giving access to their health information.