(Reuters Health)—Patient portals at U.S. hospitals leave a lot to be desired in terms of privacy when individuals want to share access with an informal caregiver, a new study finds. At nearly half of 102 hospitals included in the study, personnel advised that patients share their account password to give access to a family member…
Ethics Forum: Facebook Friend Request from Patient Raises Concern for Rheumatologist
Social media has revolutionized my practice. I stay current with Twitter content from other rheumatologists, patient organizations and medical journals. I am also an active member of the international Twitter-based rheumatology journal club, #RheumJC. Still, I was recently surprised when my patient’s name appeared in a friend request. This same patient was following me on…
Email Remains Dominant Communications Method in Medicine
Forty-five years ago, a computer engineer in Boston sent an electronic message between two computers some 10 feet apart. It took another 10 years or so before the electronic mail message was dubbed email—a term now, perhaps, more ubiquitous than any other in the lexicon of modern communications. Despite the seemingly definitive place email communication…
Phase 2 of HIPAA Audit Program Launches
With many competing priorities facing physician practices, HIPAA compliance and security is not a topic that usually makes it to the top of the list. But this is not the case with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR), because it has initiated a new phase of audits of physician…
U.S., Canada Issue Joint Alert on Ransomware after Hospital Attacks
(Reuters)—The U.S. and Canada on Thursday issued a rare joint cyber alert, warning against a recent surge in extortion attacks that infect computers with viruses known as “ransomware,” which encrypt data and demand payments for it to be unlocked. The warning follows reports from several private security firms that they expect the crisis to worsen,…
Health Data Breaches on the Rise
Large-scale health data breaches reported by doctors and health plans have been rising steadily, a new report shows. From 2010 to 2013, nearly 1000 large breaches affected more than 29 million individual health records, and more than half resulted from theft or loss of laptops, thumb drives and paper records, according to researchers with access…
HIPAA Security Standards: What Rheumatologists Need to Know
Maintain compliance with updated federal rules governing privacy protection for patient health information
HHS Enforces Stricter Rules on HIPAA
As of February 17, 2010, entities covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), such as group health plans and their business associates, will have to take certain actions to ensure continued compliance with the privacy and security provisions of the act.