Privacy software: Who are the early leaders? – software, security, privacy, ControlCase, Consult2Comply, brinQa, Avior Computing, Archer, applications, Agiliance – Security & Email – PC World Business

Together they form what I’d call the “privacy GRC” market, where GRC stands for “governance, risk and compliance.” GRC makes up most of what privacy people do. It’s not a big market. To put things into perspective, Gartner is only in its third year of analyzing the nascent IT GRC market. The privacy GRC market [...]

Rite Aid Agrees to Pay $1 Million to Settle HIPAA Privacy Case – MarketWatch

The OCR, which enforces the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules, opened its investigation of RAC after television media videotaped incidents in which pharmacies were shown to have disposed of prescriptions and labeled pill bottles containing individuals’ identifiable information in industrial trash containers that were accessible to the public. These incidents were reported as occurring in [...]

HIPAA Rules Now Apply to PHRs

It’s not a new law, but it’s a tangible, short-term step toward protecting the privacy of patient data that travels online. To address loopholes in current patient privacy legislation, the Health and Human Services Department on Thursday proposed privacy rules that would apply to vendors of technology that transmit personal health data. via HIPAA Rules [...]

HHS Proposal covers chain of subcontractors – HIPAA

A key provision of the pending rules would make “downstream” healthcare subcontractors subject to HIPAA’s privacy and security requirements. HIPAA, as bolstered under the HITECH Act, already considers a health information exchange as a “business associate” of organizations covered by the law. Business associates are required to sign contacts that bind them to HIPAA.The proposed [...]

OMB Completes HIPAA Rules Review

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has finished its review of proposed rules related to changes to HIPAA privacy and security rules, meaning the rules could hit the streets this week. The OMB reports that it has concluded its regulatory review of the rules HHS sent in April. via OMB Completes HIPAA Rules Review.

Patients Question HIPAA Provision That Allows Use Of Patient Data For Fundraising

The federal law known as HIPAA that is meant to protect the privacy of patients “specifically allows medical centers to use patient information for fundraising activities,” The Seattle Times reports. “Information about diagnosis or treatment is off-limits, but federal and state laws allow hospitals, in most cases, to use a patient's name, address, contact information, [...]

OCR Building HIPAA Audit Plan With Outside Help

HIPAA's privacy and security enforcer has hired an outside firm to help build its HITECH-required HIPAA auditing plan, the government agency tells HealthLeaders Media. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which carries out for the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) enforcement of the HIPAA privacy and security rules, says it does not have [...]

OCR Boosting HIPAA Security Enforcement

The health care industry can soon expect a greater emphasis on enforcing the HIPAA security rule than in years past. That’s the message that Susan McAndrew, deputy director for privacy at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, delivered May 11 at the Safeguarding Health Information conference in Washington. OCR sponsored [...]

Hospital fulfills subpoena, gets hit with privacy suit

The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio found itself in such a predicament when it agreed to turn over a patient’s records in response to a grand jury subpoena in a criminal investigation. The subpoena request was prompted by a criminal investigation of James Turk, a private investigator and former police officer who was indicted in June [...]

Health worker is first HIPAA privacy violator to get jail time

A former UCLA Health System employee, apparently disgruntled over an impending firing, has been sentenced to four months in federal prison after pleading guilty in January to illegally snooping into patient records, mainly those belonging to celebrities via Health worker is first HIPAA privacy violator to get jail time – SC Magazine US.