Archive for the ‘healthcare’ Category

Lack of Basic Security Practices Results in $1.7 Million Sanction

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

July 4 Update to Original Post: See additional recent statements from the OCR and the Alaska DHSS about this case here.

Here is a significant sanction, just applied, that all organizations, of all sizes, need to take notice of. Even if you are not in the healthcare industry, this case points out the elements of an information security and privacy program, and the supporting safeguards, which will be used as a model of standard practices to by all types of regulatory oversight agencies. (more…)

Back to the Future Security Basics: Security through Obscurity Still Does Not Work

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Last week I provided Howard Anderson at HealthInfosecurity.com with some of my thoughts about the recent Utah Department of Health breach of the files of 900,000 individuals, and counting. He included some of my thoughts in his blog post, along with thoughts from others. I wanted to provide my full reply here, along with some expanded thoughts.

As background, for those of you who may not have heard of this hack yet, in a nutshell: (more…)

Do Subpoenas Trump HIPAA and/or Trample Security Of PHI?

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

On October 10, 2011, there was a report in the Baltimore Sun, “Law firm loses hard drive with patient records: Attorneys represent St. Joseph cardiologist sued for malpractice.” I posted about the report to one of the LinkedIn groups I participate in, pointing out that this is yet one more example of (more…)

Auditing Patient Records Survey Results

Saturday, September 10th, 2011

There are no specific requirements that the Department of Health and Human Services provide with regards to how often to perform patient records audits (understandably so, since it should be based upon an organization’s own risk environment), and so many healthcare providers wonder what others are doing, or what is “standard” practice.  So, to help determine this, from mid- to late-August (two weeks) I posted a very short, completely unscientific, survey specifically to get a feel for what some other hospitals and clinics are doing with regard to auditing patient records access and disclosures, as required by HIPAA.  Here are the results… (more…)

HIPAA/HITECH Compliance Is All or Nothing

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

I’m seeing growing numbers of  business associates, particularly those who do technology-based services, expressing the belief that they don’t need to worry about complying with most of HIPAA.  I wrote a guest blog post for Credant about this misguided thinking that was published today.  I welcome your feedback!

UCLA Health System Pays $865K to Settle Celebrity Privacy HIPAA Violations

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Here’s yet another HIPAA violations penalty to add to what seems to be a quickly growing list.  In this case it was a violation of the minimum necessary access principle, in addition to providing the information to reporters, who then published the information.  And, it is likely based upon the required actions that go beyond the fine, that the policies, procedures, training, awareness, and access logging processes was lacking as well. (more…)

10 Risk-Reducing Actions for Mobile HIPAA/HITECH Compliance

Sunday, June 19th, 2011

I’m giving a free webinar sponsored by Sophos this coming Wednesday, June 22: “10 Risk-Reducing Actions for Mobile HIPAA/HITECH Compliance.”   Here is more information about it: (more…)

Designated Record Sets: Know What They Are! (AD NPRM Discussion #1)

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

My last blog post provided a preliminary overview of the Accounting of Disclosures Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (AD  NPRM).  I got a lot of questions as a result directly, in addition to the blog comments. When trying to understand regulations, and how to put them into practice within an organization, I’ve found it is best to break them down into bite-sized chunks, starting from the basics and building from there.  Today I want to spend a little time looking at what makes up a “designated record set,” or DRS, since the access report requirement is specific to accesses to DRS’s… (more…)

Physician Learns A Hard PHI Lesson

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

News broke  yesterday about a physician in Rhode Island, at the Westerly Hospital, who was sanctioned for posting protected health information (PHI) on her Facebook page: (more…)

HIPAA Compliance Investigations And The Insider Threat

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

I’ve been getting a lot more questions about HIPAA and HITECH lately from folks I’ve never met, but who have concerns about the security and privacy of their health information (“protected health information” or “PHI” as referenced within HIPAA/HITECH), businesses that are trying to understand how to protect PHI according to the regulatory requirements, and a growing number who express frustration with the unsecure ways in which clients, customers, patients and business partners are sharing information with them.  There just are not enough hours in the day to answer them all, but  I decided I’d start sharing some of the questions, and my corresponding answers, that seem to be topics that a wide range of readers may be interested in.

I was recently contacted by someone who had a question about a recent HIPAA complaint against Rowan Regional Medical Center (more…)