Call us toll-free: 800-878-7828 — Monday - Friday — 8AM - 5PM EST
Health system now to ‘expedite’ encryption By Erin McCann for Healthcare IT News Despite the revamped federal HIPAA Omnibus Rule which holds covered entities and business associates more accountable for failing to adequately protect patients’ health information, some groups continue to make the same old avoidable mistakes. AHMC Healthcare, a six-hospital health system in Alhambra,…
From WZZM, ABC Channel 13 in Grand Rapids, MI, With Video GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) — Several employees at Spectrum Health have been terminated over a picture posted on Facebook. A source tells WZZM 13 News that an off-duty employee was in the emergency room when he saw an attractive female. He took a picture of…
News Release at HHS.gov Under a settlement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Affinity Health Plan, Inc. will settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules for $1,215,780. Affinity Health Plan is a not-for-profit managed care plan serving the New York…
By Steven Salzberg for Forbes , Photo: redtimmy/Flickr We’ve seen how badly the U.S. patent system is broken when it comes to gene patents. The recent U.S. Supreme Court case overturning Myriad Genetics’ patents on the human breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, was a step in the right direction. But the problem goes much deeper than…
Written by Molly Gamble for Becker’s Hospital Review It’s been said that there are three types of people in the world: the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive. The same could be said for organizations, particularly in healthcare. There are hospitals that will cling to the ways of the past. There are also organizations that…
Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Eric Walsh for Reuters Five medical workers have been fired over a patient data breach at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Los Angeles facility said in a statement, while celebrity website TMZ reported on Saturday that the hacking effort targeted reality star Kim Kardashian. Cedars-Sinai, a favorite destination for celebrities…
By John Tozzi for Bloomberg Businessweek Last year health insurance companies sent small businesses $321 million in rebates. In California, tens of millions more are on the way, according to the Los Angeles Times. The money comes from a little-known piece of Obamacare meant to keep premiums in check. In all the talk about death…
By Dan Munro for Forbes I’ve recounted the story behind this headline before (here) but there’s a longer, more detailed version – and lesson. I attended a healthcare event last year that needs to remain nameless. It wasn’t a big event. In fact, it was very focused and relatively small. That’s about as much as we need to…
By Sandra G. Boodman for Kaiser Health News This story was produced in collaboration with The Washington Post At a critical point in a complex abdominal operation, a surgeon was handed a device that didn’t work because it had been loaded incorrectly by a surgical technician. Furious that she couldn’t use it, the surgeon slammed…
By David Codrea for examiner.com An advance notice of proposed rulemaking by the Office for Civil Rights Department of the Department of Health and Human Services titled “HIPAA Privacy Rule and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)” was published yesterday in the Federal Register. Drafted following Executive Actions signed by President Barack Obama…