Data breaches can cost healthcare entities a great deal. Proof to this is The Community Health Systems breach incident that exposed 4.5 million patients’ data in 29 states. According to a calculation at Forbes, this breach is likely to cost the entity anywhere between $75 million and $150 million. Soon after the breach was announced,…
The lesson to be learned from recent audits – security risk analysis is imperative for all health care enterprises. And this is a measure that cannot be taken lightly! The responsibility of protecting confidential patient data rests with healthcare enterprises and not EHR vendors. That is all the more reason why no organization can afford…
A thousand incidents and counting, the federal health breach tally hits an all-time high, now listing 1,010 major breaches reported since federal regulators started to track them in September 2009 after the HITECH Act came into effect. These breaches have together affected 31.5 million individuals. The noteworthy fact is that out of these, more than…
No organization can afford to take the risk of inadequate data protection, particularly when it is business associates dealing with sensitive patient information. Under the HIPAA Omnibus Rule, business associates of covered entities are directly liable for HIPAA compliance. However in reality, although healthcare organizations enter into comprehensive business associate agreements, many fail to hold…
Although there has been enough and more said about the importance of encryption in safeguarding protected health information (PHI), data breaches resulting due to lack of encryption seem to still be occurring. Almost every other day there is a new headline about a healthcare institution or a hospital encountering a HIPAA breach. It is disturbing…
While the meaningful use incentive program is intended to encourage healthcare providers to adopt electronic health record systems and to ensure secure data sharing practices, it looks like some providers may have found loopholes to obtaining incentives without actually fulfilling requirements. Shelby Regional Medical Centre in Texas has come under the scanner for making false…
While the healthcare industry looks at 2014 as the year to strengthen breach prevention and data protection initiatives, experts predict that Healthcare breach suits will be common this year. And true to this fact, dozens of lawsuits have already been filed in the case of the Target breach, which involved theft of two unencrypted laptop…
With contributions of a few mega healthcare data breaches in 2013, the number of individuals affected now is more than twice the number in 2012. While three recent breaches that grabbed the headlines have not yet been added to the official 2013 tally, once the number of affected individuals is confirmed, the breach tally for…
There has been enough and more said about the importance of encryption in safeguarding protected health information (PHI). But data breaches resulting due to lack of encryption continue to fill up the ‘wall of shame’, with the latest addition being a breach reported by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield. This incident involved the theft of…
With the ‘Wall of Shame’ having a fewer number of breaches added in the past month, and the breaches of 2013 so far being much smaller than the alarming numbers of the past year, there was a sense of mild relief felt in the healthcare sector. But cases that have surfaced during the last few…
