Privacy & Security
The Department of Veterans Affairs continues to be one of the biggest offenders of HIPAA privacy and security rules and has reported egregious breaches in recent years, affecting millions of veterans and active service members.
It's been almost two weeks since Obamacare's federal insurance exchange website went live, was inundated with traffic, went weird, was taken down for maintenance, then came back online still filled with glitches. Why did such a crucial site fail at such a critical moment? And what are the lessons that can be learned?
A Tennessee-based healthcare provider is notifying thousands of patients that their protected health information has been compromised following a privacy breach due to unencryption. The incident has prompted the hospital to move its records to an encrypted cloud-based server.
UnityPoint Health in West Des Moines, Iowa, is notifying 1,800 patients that their protected health records have been compromised after it was discovered that an employee of the health system's third party contractor gained unauthorized access to patient records.
A San Jose, Calif.-based hospital is notifying patients that their protected health information has been compromised after an unencrypted laptop was stolen from the hospital over the weekend.
Large majorities of Americans have concerns about the security of their electronic health records, and more than two-thirds of patients say their physicians have not adequately explained the switch to digital records, a new poll shows.
With bring your own device policies at healthcare organizations seeing an upward trend across the country, many say there's good reason to be apprehensive -- resistant even -- to the BYOD movement.
A Florida hospital has notified thousands of patients that their protected health information and Social Security numbers may have been inappropriately accessed by a former employee for tax fraud purposes.
In healthcare, virtually nothing is black and white. From Obamacare to varying payment and care models, healthcare issues live in the land of gray and opaque where dissenting opinions reign. The idea of patient privacy and consent proves no exception.
When OCR Director Leon Rodriguez took the stage Sept. 23 at the HIMSS Media and Healthcare IT News Privacy and Security Forum, the timing was perfect. With the HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule taking effect on the same day, Rodriguez talked to the increased enforcement to come.