New Study Reveals Push to Electronic Medical Records Puts Patient Privacy at Risk | Reuters

70 Percent of Surveyed Hospital Security Professionals Say Senior Management Fail to Prioritize Privacy and Data Security
via New Study Reveals Push to Electronic Medical Records Puts Patient Privacy at Risk | Reuters.

AHIMA floats privacy ‘bill of rights’ for entities outside HIPAA

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is looking to bridge what it sees as a yawning gap in health privacy protections with a seven-point bill of rights it hopes will push the healthcare industry to a “major paradigm shift” in patient privacy practices.
There are many entities that operate outside of the Health Insurance Portability [...]

HHS guts health-care breach notification law, groups warn

However, in an interim final rule published late last month, the HHS introduced a new “harm threshold” for breach notification which critics say completely guts the original intent of the bill. Under the change, health-care entities will be required to publicly disclose breaches involving health-care data only if they think the breach will cause financial [...]

OMB Unveils Automated FISMA Reporting System

Changes are coming to the way federal CIOs will report how their departments and agencies comply with the Federal Information Security Management Act, but the revisions have nothing to do with new ways to measure how secure are government IT systems and networks. Starting this fall, departments and agencies must use a new automated reporting [...]

Greater efficiency predicted with new HIPAA enforcer – Modern Healthcare

The scope of Susan McAndrew’s healthcare information technology oversight authority doubled this week when her boss, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, added security rule enforcement duties to those she already had, enforcing the privacy rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 as deputy director for health information privacy at HHS’ Civil Rights [...]

HHS’ Civil Rights Office to enforce HIPAA security – Modern Healthcare

Authority for enforcing the security provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 has been moved from the CMS, and consolidated with HIPAA privacy enforcement, to the Civil Rights Office at HHS, according to an announcement in the Federal Register.
via HHS’ Civil Rights Office to enforce HIPAA security – Modern Healthcare.

Privacy Rule Burden: 62.3 Million Hours – WOW

A notice in published July 29 in the Federal Register starkly demonstrates administrative burdens of complying with the HIPAA privacy rule.
The Department of Health and Human Services published the notice as part of its intent to continue requiring documentation of compliance. The notice lists a dozen documentation requirements, such as authorization to use and disclose [...]

How will California’s tougher-than-HIPAA privacy laws impact U.S.? – FierceHealthIT

Last September, California enacted the toughest patient privacy protections in the country, even tougher than HIPAA. They include specific penalties for medical-record snooping, rules requiring providers to report breaches far more quickly than HIPAA and requirements that safeguards like passwords be put in place. The new laws even establish a new state office supervising patient [...]

Kaiser hospital hit with another fine for privacy violation – FierceHealthIT

The California Department of Public Health issued an administrative penalty of $187,500 this week against the facility after concluding that the hospital didn’t do enough to protect patient health information. Bellflower Hospital was previously slapped with a $250,000 fine in May for violations taking place in mid-March during Nadya Suleman’s inpatient stay.
via Kaiser hospital hit [...]

PCI Council Releases Guidelines for Wireless Network Security #PCI

Nearly a year after ordering the phase-out of Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), a technology introduced in 1999 to protect data flowing over wireless networks, the PCI Security Standards Council this week released new guidelines for enhanced wireless security.
via News.