A national chain of 200 long-term care and rehabilitation facilities has beefed up its use of encryption following two recent breach incidents involving the theft of unencrypted computer devices.
My fingers are crossed that the final version of the federal breach notification rule greatly clarifies when a breach has to be reported to the individuals affected as well as federal authorities.
Healthcare organizations should identify multiple steps for addressing the risks that could lead to a costly breach of information, says Christopher Hourihan, manager of development and programs at the Health Information Trust Alliance.
The Massachusetts attorney general's office has objected to a hospital's decision not to send notifications to 800,000 individuals who may have been affected by a recent breach.
Despite efforts to tighten security to prevent such digital invasions, the military understands such breaches could still occur, which led Lynn to say the military must develop and train its cyber defenders to act in a degraded information environment.
In an unusual breach incident, the Social Security numbers, gender and dates of birth for about 22,000 retired Delaware state employees were posted for five days on a state website.
All insurance companies doing business in Connecticut now must report information breaches to state authorities within five calendar days, even if the data involved was encrypted.
A total price tag of nearly $1 billion for dealing with the aftermath of major breaches reported to federal authorities so far should motivate healthcare organizations to take aggressive steps to improve security, one analyst advises.
Federal regulators have recalculated the cumulative tally of the number of Americans affected by major healthcare breaches. They now estimate that nearly 4.8 million individuals have been affected by the 138 breaches reported so far.
The only state attorney general in the nation who so far has used his new power under the HITECH Act to sue a healthcare organization for HIPAA privacy and security rule violations is keeping a close eye on breaches of all sizes.
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