A federal law giving U.S. citizens new rights over their personal data has been introduced by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington). The Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act (COPRA) proposes California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) style protections at a national level to better protect the privacy of consumers and give them greater control over how their… Read More »
North Platte, NE-based Great Plains Health has experienced a ransomware attack that has resulted in the encryption of patient medical records. The attack was detected at around 7pm on Tuesday, November 26. Prompt action was taken to minimize the impact on patients, and staff switched to pen and paper while computer systems were offline. IT… Read More »
52% of healthcare organizations experience communications disconnects that negatively impact patients daily or multiple times a week, according to a recent study by TigerConnect. These communication problems are more than a cause of frustration for healthcare employees. They make care coordination difficult and lead to lapses in care. In fact, the impact of poor communication… Read More »
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced its 8th HIPAA financial penalty of 2019. Sentara Hospitals has agreed to settle potential violations of the HIPAA Privacy and Breach Notification Rules and will pay a penalty of $2.175 million and will adopt a corrective action plan to address areas… Read More »
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute (HSSEDI) has updated its list of the 25 most dangerous software vulnerabilities. This is the first time in the past 8 years that the list has been updated. The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Errors was first created… Read More »
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has named Timothy Noonan Deputy Director for Health Information Privacy. The role of the Deputy Director for Health Information Privacy is to lead the Health Information Privacy Division of the Office for Civil Rights, oversee OCR’s national health information privacy policy and outreach… Read More »
As 2019 draws to a close, companies that are looking to start providing products and services to the healthcare industry will be considering how they can become HIPAA-compliant in 2020. Forward-thinking business associates already serving the healthcare sector are thinking about how they can maintain compliance in 2020, build their portfolio of healthcare clients, and… Read More »
Children’s Minnesota has started notifying 37,942 patients that information related to their appointments has been exposed and could have been accessed by unauthorized individuals. The internal, electronic calendars used by certain staff members had been configured in a way that allowed them to be viewed by individuals outside of Children’s Minnesota’s system. The misconfiguration was… Read More »
There was a 44.44% month-over-month increase in healthcare data breaches in October. 52 breaches were reported to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights in October. 661,830 healthcare records were reported as exposed, impermissibly disclosed, or stolen in those breaches. This month takes the total number of breached healthcare records in 2019 past the 38 million… Read More »
According to the Q3, 2019 Phishing Activity Trends Report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group, phishing attacks are now occurring at a rate not seen since 2016. 266,387 unique phishing sites were detected in Q3, 2019, an increase of 46% from Q2, 2019. Almost twice the number of phishing sites were detected in Q3, 2019 than… Read More »