Data Breach Affects 32,000 Patients

Health Data Management reported a data breach by one of the contractors that Cogent Healthcare, a firm that manages practice data for hospitalists and intensivists, uses.  You can read the article at the HDM website. M2ComSys, a firm for medical transcription, was not storing data on a secure site.  The patient care notes were breached between May 5 and June 24.  Some of the care notes were indexed by Google.

Google has worked with Cogent Healthcare to remove all of the protected health information.  Cogent Healthcare has terminated the contract with M2ComSys.  It is also offering 1-year identity theft protection to the 32,000 patients whose data were compromised.

Encryption Software

Now that I have most of the paperwork for fall semester completed, I have time to do some exploring.  With privacy issues associate with HIPAA and FERPA, it is important for clinicians and educators to use encryption software.  AxCrypt (http://www.axantum.com/) has just released a new update to the free encryption software.  The software is really easy to use.  Simply right-click on a file or folder and select encrypt from the menu. 

To learn more about encryption, go to How Stuff Works at http://www.howstuffworks.com/encryption.htm 

New computers often have encryption software pre-installed.

Patient Rights

The HealthIT website has been updated with frequently asked questions for patients/families. It includes information about the personal health record (PHR) and HIPAA.  It is certainly worth  exploring as nurses advocate for others. 

http://www.healthit.gov/patients-families/frequently-asked-questions

Violation of HIPAA - $4.3 million penalty

HHS imposed a $4.3 million civil money penalty for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule on Cignet Health of Prince George’s County, Md.  According to the news CIGNET refused to allow 41 patients access to their medical records between September 2008 and October 2009.  This was the first civil penalty that HHS has issued for HIPAA violation.  Read more at http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/02/20110222a.html

Medical Identity Theft

This past weekend, Linda and I spent time discussing the textbook reviews for the 3rd edition.  I thought that the reviewers provided some excellent suggestions.  One of the suggestions was to address medical identity theft.  Although security breaches are discussed on p. 438 in Chapter 16, the ramifications of the breaches are not detailed.  We have included a link to comprehensive information about medical identity theft on the textbook web page http://dlthede.net/Informatics/Informatics.html%20in the section Corrections & Additions.  There is now a link to the World Privacy Forum resources on medical identity theft http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/medicalidentitytheft.html%20.

I continue to be amazed and repulsed about the extent of malicous criminal behavior!  For example, a Boston psychiatrist who created fictitious medical diagnoses for his patients for billing purposes.  The common theme for medical identity theft is personal greed!  The perpetrators steal identities in order to obtain money, illegal drugs, or medical treatment.  A PowerPoint presentation that provides a comprehensive overview about medical identity theft is available online at http://www.ehcca.com/presentations/HIPAA13/4_02.ppt