Privacy & Security
When a medical privacy breach occurs, it's most often the patient who gets notified that their personal information was compromised, not the provider. But that's not always the case.
Researchers and other clinicians love it. Privacy officers, not so much. The popular file hosting site isn't HIPAA compliant, and hasn't shown much interest in business associate agreements.
Wish there could be a delay of Stage 2 meaningful use? Talk to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, not the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. And don't hold your breath.
Data breaches and cybersecurity threats in healthcare are going to happen. It's virtually unavoidable. What can be avoidable, however, are the messy consequences of substandard risk assessment strategies and inadequate threat response.
As patient engagement gains momentum, and technology enables easier access to personal health information, many providers still charge money for copies of records. That's allowed under HIPAA and HITECH. But is it wise?
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services CIO, Tony Trenkle, is stepping down this month amid the problematic rollout of the Healthcare.gov website, CMS announced in an email to the staff.
When in the realm of healthcare privacy and security, electronic health records may facilitate easier data exchange and data viewing, but the systems' audit trails make catching unauthorized viewers all the more simple, too.
"The mismatch between patients and their clinical data is a serious and growing patient safety issue," says Meryl Bloomrosen, vice president of thought leadership, practice excellence and public policy at AHIMA, the organization of health information management professionals.
As healthcare facilities launch their own patient portals, technology is only the first step. Administrators are learning that decisions need to be made on everything from patient login protocols to support for patient record revisions.
Jeffrey L. Brown, M.S., CIO of Lawrence General Hospital in Lawrence, Mass., talks about breach prevention through employee education, the expense of device encryption and mobile security at the 2013 Privacy and Security Forum in Boston.