Recent progress in technology have allowed wearable devices to be developed to monitor health and fitness, and while these gadgets, monitors and sensors can significantly improve healthcare, they also carry a great danger of HIPAA violation. Over the past year the...

Late last week the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee revealed thathealthcare IT security is to be addressed and that it will “take up the matter as part of a bipartisan review of health information security”. The Associate Press Agency reports...

The deadline for making security breaches, affecting less than 500 people, from 2014 known is coming in the next three weeks. Any healthcare supplier or other covered entity that has not filed all 2014 breach reports must ensure they have all beensubmitted – and are...

The HHS has reacted to a letter sent by Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) asking for greater transparency on HIPAA Rules relating to the mobile health industry, and has confirmed that the OCR will be working more closely with the industry to ensure HIPAA Rules are...

  The App Association (ACT) – an advocacy and educational group set up to represent mobile app developers – recently wrote to the Office for Civil Rights seeking clarification on HIPAA privacy rules, and how they apply to mobile developers. Developers are eager...

After the success of its HIPAA Enterprise Platform, Caspio has revealed it will now be offering HIPAA Compliant Professional Services for App Development, Caspio, a major cloud platform provider, offers its platform-as-a-service to businesses and groups in the public...

January 1 normally sees many announcements from hospitals around the country advising the public of the first babies to be born in the New Year; however 2015 has seen less hospitals opting to make the announcements. Many healthcare suppliers have made the decision not...

As reported recently on Bloomsberg News, pharmaceutical companies are using patient PHI to market their products, even though they are not allowed to have access to this information in accordance with HIPAA regulations, HIPAA covered entities are not allowed to...

In order to adhere with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations it is vitally important that all healthcare and health plan suppliers use appropriate security measures to keep the personal and medical information of employees and patients safe....

The Early Learning Coalition of Palm Beach County has revealed that a now departed member of staff has inappropriately accessed a database containing the medical records of up to 230,000 patients. The database included personal information of parents and children who...

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (THHSC) hasreported a 2 million-record HIPAA breach by Xerox to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights. Allegedly Xerox did not returned PHI following the termination of the service...

The Department of Health and Human Services’ HIPAA Security Rule has said, in an official release, that healthcare entities and their business associates must put in place measures to protect private and confidential data of patients. Many healthcare organizations...

An appeal against the $1.44 million award for damages by Walgreen Co. has been lost. The group was  it was ordered to pay the fine after a HIPAA Privacy Rule breach lead to confidential patient PHI being shared with unauthorized people. This is the first time that the...

Software companies and mobile phone application developers are worried about HIPAA regulations and have argues that the legislation is hampering new innovation. The industry has recognized the for stringent controls to ensure data is recorded, stored and transmitted...

A recent ruling by the Connecticut Supreme Court could allow for an influx of lawsuits from victims of theft and fraud who have had their secured private health information disclosed and have suffered losses or harm due to this. The case of Emily Byrne vs. Avery...

The CMS has announced  that the rule that a national health plan identifier must be used for transactions has now been “delayed until further notice”. The Office of E-Health Standards and Services of the CMS previously decreed in 2012 that it would require health...

On October 2, The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released a report to congress providing guidance and recommendations on how new technology can be used in healthcare and how the safe exchange of health information can...

A supplierer diagnostic radiology services has revealed that it has experienced a data breach that has potentially exposed the billing information and personal identifiers of 307,000 individuals from all across the U.S.A. Touchstone Medical Imaging, LLC found that an...

The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing has, accidentally, disclosed protected health information on patients and is in breach of HIPAA regulations following a recent mailshot. The breach has now been publicly revealed and the patients affected...

On Tuesday 30th September, California Governor Edmund Brown signed off on new legislation to improve the level of privacy protection for citizens of California. The new set of bills introduced a number of amendments to the legislation which included more transparent...

The main focus at the the 7th annual conference, Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance Through HIPAA Security held this month in Washington D.C. was to highlight the current state of health information management and to explore the use of information...

Aventura Hospital and Medical Center has announced a new security breach, the third suffered in the last two years, which has affected up to 82,601 individuals. The healthcare provider has only recently discovered the breach, although it started just a single day...

The second round of HIPAA compliance audits has been put off until 2015 to give the OCR additional time to test its new internet portal. This next round of audits was initially scheduled to take place this fall. The new web portal is one of the new initiatives to...

In the wake of high profile data breaches in recent months, in particular the breach of PHI across 209 hospitals run by CHS, compliance with HIPAA regulations is now high on the agenda, especially considering the large penalties being applied by the OCR. Any data...

The recently passed HIPAA Omnibus Rule, normally labelled as the Megarule due to its extensive amendments to existing legislation , updates the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1996) expanding its reach to include business associates of healthcare...

Violations of HIPAA regulations, failures to ensure compliance and for accidentally causing the privacy of patients to be compromised will lead to healthcare organizations facing heavy fines. Criminal charges may also be filed if it can be proven that data was viewed...

An Illinois a class action lawsuit that arose from the Massive HIPAA breach affecting the healthcare provider last August has been thrown out by circuit court in Kane County. The incident possibly exposed the data of almost 4 million patients when four unencrypted...

A civil action lawsuit arising from HIPAA violations caused by a physician at the Johns Hopkins Health System has been settled for a $190 million. The settlement arose due to a HIPAA Privacy Rule violation caused by an obstetrician and gynecologist who had used a...

Texan prosecutors recent;y filed an indictment in the Tyler District Court against Joshua Hippler, a 30-year-old former worker at an unnamed hospital in East Texas. In accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, individuals and...