June 20, 2016 HIPAA Minimum Necessary Standard Discussed at NCVHS Hearing Melissa Martin, the President of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) gave a testimony at a recent National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics’ ... Read more
June 3, 2016 Connecticut Podiatry Office EHR Hack Impacts 40,000 Patients Stamford Podiatry Group P.C. is sending breach notification letters to 40,491 patients to advise them that their protected health information may have been accessed by ... Read more
May 24, 2016 Stronger Ransomware Protection for Hospitals Needed, says CHIME, AEHIS The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Security (AEHIS) have issued a joint statement calling for ... Read more
May 23, 2016 Have You Started Preparing for a HIPAA Compliance Audit? Have you started preparing for a HIPAA compliance audit? Will you be able to supply compliant documentation to OCR auditors if your organization is selected ... Read more
May 14, 2016 AHA Calls for Changes to Healthcare Data Privacy Rules The American Hospital Association (AHA) has urged congress to update data privacy rules to align them more closely with HIPAA. At present, the privacy rules ... Read more
May 10, 2016 OCR Warns Hospitals to Prepare for Business Associate Data Breaches The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has recently issued a warning to HIPAA covered entities saying they should be ... Read more
May 5, 2016 Skeddly Introduces Managed Policies Allowing Permissions to be Set by Role Skeddly has made enhancements to its cloud automation platform. The new feature allows administrators to set permissions for users based on their role within an ... Read more
May 5, 2016 Threat from Ransomware Prompts FBI to Issue a Warning to Healthcare Organizations The threat from ransomware has increased considerably over the course of the past few months, and healthcare organizations are in cybercriminals’ cross-hairs. Attacks on healthcare ... Read more
April 26, 2016 OIG Discovers 129 Medicare Healthcare Data Security Gaps The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General has recently published its annual review of the health IT security programs of Medicare ... Read more
April 19, 2016 Majority of Health IT Security Execs Have Increased Spending on Data Protection A recent study conducted by data security firm Vormetric indicates 60% of healthcare IT security executives have increased their data protection budgets. New data security ... Read more
April 15, 2016 Healthcare IT Security Focus On Compliance Not Breach Prevention According to the latest Vormetric data threat report, the main healthcare IT security focus is meeting HIPAA compliance requirements, not preventing data breaches. HIPAA Compliance ... Read more
April 7, 2016 Phase 2 HIPAA Audit Protocol Released The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights published the new phase 2 HIPAA audit protocol this week. The protocol details the ... Read more
March 30, 2016 MedStar Health Cyberattack Forces Computer Network Shutdown Ransomware attacks on hospitals have become much more common in 2016; however, the Medstar Health cyberattack could well be the most serious. Early on Monday ... Read more
March 24, 2016 Phase 2 HIPAA Audit Program Begins The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has announced that the phase 2 HIPAA audit program has now started. Covered entities ... Read more
March 24, 2016 Ransomware Attacks on Hospitals on The Rise The recent spate of ransomware attacks on hospitals continues. In the last few days, two more attacks on Southern Californian hospitals have been announced. Ransomware ... Read more
March 21, 2016 Phase 2 HIPAA Compliance Audits Underway, says OCR Phase 2 of the HIPAA compliance audits is now underway, according to a recent announcement issued by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office ... Read more
March 17, 2016 North Memorial Healthcare to Pay $1.5 Million HIPAA Fine North Memorial Healthcare has agreed to pay the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) $1.5 million for failing to obtain ... Read more
March 17, 2016 Business Associate Data Breaches Can Be Expensive: Hospital Pays OCR $1.55 Million The latest OCR HIPAA settlement illustrates just how expensive business associate data breaches can be if a HIPAA-covered entity has not obtained a signed, compliant ... Read more
March 8, 2016 205,000 Patients of Premier Healthcare Affected by PHI Breach Bloomington, Indiana-Based Premier Healthcare has recently reported the theft of an unencrypted laptop computer containing the protected health information of 205,748 patients. Patients’ names, dates ... Read more
February 22, 2016 Hospital Ransomware Attack Concerns Security Professionals A hospital ransomware attack netted one cybercriminal gang $17,000 last week, with the ransom demand paid in the untraceable Bitcoin currency. An employee of Hollywood ... Read more
February 11, 2016 Hacking Now the Main Cause of Healthcare Data Breaches A new report recently published by IT security firm Redspin shows the main cause of healthcare data breaches in 2015 was hacking. 2015 was not ... Read more
February 5, 2016 HIPAA Cybersecurity Standards Not Adhered to By Law Firms According to a new survey conducted by Legal Workspace, many law firms are not adhering to HIPAA cybersecurity standards and are not keeping protected health ... Read more
January 12, 2016 Healthcare Data Breach Litigation Case Has Standing Based on Data Exposure Alone Healthcare data breach litigation usually requires plaintiffs to provide evidence that a breach of their Protected Health Information (PHI) has resulted in them coming to ... Read more
December 30, 2015 Business Associate HIPAA Compliance to Be Tested By OCR The next round of OCR HIPAA compliance audits is penciled in to start in the first quarter of 2016. While the audits have been much ... Read more
December 28, 2015 Biggest Healthcare Data Breaches of 2015 The financial sector and retail industries have suffered the largest data breaches over the past couple of years, but 2015 was without doubt the year ... Read more
December 11, 2015 The State Attorney General HIPAA Fines Continue State attorney general HIPAA fines continue to be issued, as the University of Rochester Medical Center agrees to pay a HIPAA settlement of $15,000 for ... Read more
December 2, 2015 Lahey Hospital HIPAA Breach Settlement Agreed with OCR The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has reached a settlement with Lahey Hospital and Medical Center following an investigation ... Read more
November 20, 2015 Breaches of PHI Are Not Specific to Healthcare Breaches of PHI are not specific to the healthcare industry, according to a new study conducted by Verizon Enterprise Solutions. PHI data breaches are actually ... Read more
November 17, 2015 UC Health Data Breach: 1,064 Affected On September 16, 2015, the University of Cincinnati Health System (UC Health) discovered the Protected Health Information of 1,064 patients had been exposed. The UC ... Read more
November 10, 2015 HIPAA Guidance for Emergencies Released by OCR It often takes an emergency situation to realize that policies and procedures are not adequate, and the recent outbreak of Ebola clearly highlighted issues with ... Read more