October 8, 2012 Jennifer Prestigiacomo
article
A pilot is now underway to demonstrate that sensitive health transactions on the Internet can earn patient and physician trust by using a trust network built around privacy-enhancing encryption technology to provide secure, multifactor, on-demand identity proofing, and authentication across multiple sectors.
October 6, 2012 Gabriel Perna
blog
I’ve been thinking about data breaches in healthcare a lot lately. For my feature in the October/November issue of Healthcare Informatics, I interviewed various industry thought leaders who had plenty to say on the topic. One constant theme from every interview subject was that this issue is primarily an organizational one.
October 4, 2012 Eric Mueller
blog
Consumers along with physicians and nurses now use devices for both personal and professional purposes. Clinicians are bringing their own mobile devices (BYODs) in droves to work to communicate with each other about patients, exchange data and access medical apps. With such fast-paced changes in the mobile medical world, the BYOD movement has raised serious privacy, security and liability risks for providers.
October 4, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
This is the second part of a two-part podcast series with James Rountree, senior consultant at Aspen Advisors, on data breaches in healthcare. Every week we’re seeing providers, payers, and government agencies, of all shapes and sizes, fall victim to a data breach. In the most recent issue of HCI, Associate Editor Gabriel Perna wrote an industry-wide report that attempts to look at this growing issue in a larger scope and found that data breaches are costing the healthcare industry an average of $6.5 billion on an annual basis.
October 2, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
As more healthcare providers digitize their data, breaches have become commonplace in an industry that lacks advanced security practices. Every week we’re seeing providers, payers, and government agencies, of all shapes and sizes, fall victim to a data breach. To get a better look at why this is happening, where the issues lay, and what healthcare providers can do to stop their data from getting breached, Healthcare Informatics Associate Editor Gabriel Perna welcomes James Rountree, senior consultant at Aspen Advisors for a two-part podcast series.
October 1, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
Thanks to the rampant digitization of healthcare data, breaches have become commonplace in an industry that lacks advanced security practices. In this industry-wide report, those who have dealt with breaches implore others to shore up internal security practices and be transparent. As one CIO keenly notes, “we’re all in this together.”
September 25, 2012
news
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and Eric Holder, Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice, sent a strongly worded letter to various provider-based organizations, touting its resolve to prevent EHR-related healthcare fraud. In the letter, Sebelius and Holder note that there has been “troubling indications” that some providers are using EHRs to “game the system,” and obtain payments, which they are not entitled.
September 24, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
article
The Bipartisan Policy Center this week laid the groundwork for a new initiative this week, identifying 15 primary drivers of health costs in the US. BPC's Health Care Cost Containment Initiative, is led by former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and former Congressional Budget Office Director Alice Rivlin.
September 24, 2012 David Raths
blog
The HIPAA Omnibus Rule's publication has been held up several times already, leaving healthcare attorneys and compliance specialists to speculate about the cause of the delay. Speaking at the Washington, D.C., Health Privacy Summit meeting in June, National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, M.D., said the final HIPAA Omnibus Rule would be released by the end of the summer.
September 20, 2012
news
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, home to most of the state’s human services and healthcare programs, has reported a data breach that occurred when an employee with the Cabinet’s Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) responded to a “phishing” e-mail sent by a hacker. According to the agency, unauthorized activity on the account was identified within a half hour and the account was immediately disabled. The agency has informed 2,500 clients that the breach may have resulted in the unintentional release of their personal information.
September 18, 2012
news
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will collect $1.5 million from Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Associates Inc. (MEEI) as a settlement for potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule that occurred when a laptop containing electronic protected health information (ePHI) was stolen. MEEI also agreed to take action while improving policies and procedures to safeguard patients’ protected health information.
September 17, 2012
news
The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs today announced a demonstration of the standards to allow sensitive health information to be shared responsibly and to comply with confidentiality laws and regulations among providers using EHRs. The demonstration also showed how sensitive information can be tagged so that when it is sent to another provider with the patient's permission, the receiving provider will know that they need to obtain the patient’s authorization to further disclose the information with others.
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