by Gary Pritts | May 12, 2014 | HIPAA
A recent survey by The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reported that medical identity theft accounted for 43.8 percent of all identity thefts reported in the US last year. The medical/healthcare segment accounted for the largest number of breaches, with other...
by Gary Pritts | May 12, 2014 | HIPAA
Conducting a meaningful use security risk assessment has been a requirement for HIPAA Covered entities since 2005, and now their business associates must also comply. The Meaningful Use program (Stage 1) also includes the requirement: “Conduct or review a...
by Gary Pritts | May 9, 2014 | HIPAA
The recent situation at NY Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center that resulted in the largest-to-date HIPAA settlement of $4.8 Million, highlighted that security leadership wasn’t aware of all of the applications running on their system. Reading...
by Gary Pritts | May 8, 2014 | HIPAA
The largest HIPAA settlement ever, in the amount of $4.8 Million, by two affiliated organizations, NY Presbyterian and Columbia University, sheds light on HHS expectations for HIPAA compliance, at least for a large academic medical center with 24,000 employees. The...
by Gary Pritts | May 6, 2014 | HIPAA
Employee misbehavior using access privileges for the purpose of identity theft has led to yet another data breach. Notice was sent to more than 2,400 patients at UMass Memorial Medical Center (UMMMC) in Worcester, MA regarding potential identify theft. On March 6,...
by Gary Pritts | May 5, 2014 | HIPAA
The Fourth Annual Patient Privacy and Data Security Survey, published in March, revealed new and expanded threats to the security and privacy of patient information in the U.S. healthcare system. The independent survey was completed by the Ponemon Institute and...
by Gary Pritts | May 2, 2014 | HIPAA
Boston Medical Center, a 496-bed academic medical center in Boston, discovered a data breach on March 3 when the records of 15,000 patients were posted online by a vendor. The records, which contained patients’ names, addresses, and medical information, including what...
by Gary Pritts | May 1, 2014 | HIPAA
A data breach at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) originally thought to have compromised the privacy of 332 employees, may actually have over 27,000 victims according to a recent Pittsburgh Tribune-Review report. The alleged breach involved the...
by Gary Pritts | Apr 30, 2014 | HIPAA
The FBI recently issued two private industry notices (PINs) to the healthcare sector, warning that cyber-attacks against devices and systems in that industry are likely to increase. The notices were issued to a number of undisclosed and unidentified organizations in...
by Gary Pritts | Apr 29, 2014 | HIPAA
Microsoft announced over the weekend that all versions of Internet Explorer have a “serious security hole” that hackers can use to take over a computer and hijack your computer. In their announcement, Microsoft stated that they are aware of limited, targeted attacks...
