Although HIPAA gives patients the right to access their health records in their preferred format - on paper or electronically - a new study finds discrepancies in the information hospitals provide to patients regarding the release of their records, pointing to the need for better training.
Although the passage by Congress of the Support for Patients and Communities Act this week is an important step in the nation's battle against the opioid drug addiction crisis, it lacks a critical privacy provision, says Geisinger Health CIO John Kravitz, who analyzes the implications.
The U.K.'s data protection regulator has fined Bupa Insurance Services £175,000 ($228,000) for failing to stop an employee from stealing 547,000 customer records, which were later offered for sale on the dark web. The ICO found that the health insurer's CRM system lacked adequate security controls.
As CISOs, CIOs and privacy officers look for ways to boost the timely, secure sharing of healthcare information to improve treatment, one obstacle that potentially stands in the way is CFR-42 Part 2, a 1970s-era regulation. Dozens of healthcare organizations are pushing Congress to change that regulation.
A case involving alleged insider theft of protected health information from a hospital in New York illustrates why healthcare organizations need to take extra precautions to prevent similar incidents. Security experts offer recommendations.
Making bigger advances in implementing nationwide health information exchange will require a multipronged effort, including getting patients more involved and using a variety of technical approaches, says Scott Stuewe, the new president and CEO of DirectTrust.
While healthcare entities and their vendors apparently are improving their encryption practices for computing and storage devices, regulators are also urging organizations to avoid overlooking the importance of physically securing and tracking these devices to help safeguard PHI.
The latest edition of the ISMG Security Report features Barbara Simons, co-author of the book "Broken Ballots," discussing why she believes it's a "national disgrace" that some states are relying on computer voting with no provision for recounts. Also: Update on breach lawsuit against Premera Blue Cross.
Federal regulators are being asked to relax anti-kickback rules so that resource-strapped healthcare providers can accept certain donations or subsidies of cybersecurity products and services.
A tragic accident involving the drowning of a young boy also turned into a privacy breach nightmare for the toddler's adoptive parents, a lawsuit filed against an Oklahoma county hospital alleges.
Although the outlook for advancing interoperable, secure national health information exchange is promising, many significant challenges still must be overcome, says David Kibbe, M.D., founding president and outgoing CEO of DirectTrust.
When is it acceptable to allow healthcare workers to use their personal smartphones to access patient records? A recent incident at the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs spotlights the dilemma.
As the HIPAA security rule turns 20, it's time for regulators to make updates reflecting the changing cyberthreat landscape and technological evolution that's happened over the past two decades, says security expert Tom Walsh.
Nearly two dozen security weaknesses in OpenEMR - open source electronic medical record and practice management software - left patient data vulnerable to cyberattacks before most were patched, according to the London-based security research firm Project Insecurity.
More than a dozen technology and medical organizations are asking HHS why it's taking so long to issue regulations aimed at limiting the blocking of health information sharing. The regs were called for in a law passed in 2016.
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