This post, EPA Issues New Waste Rules for Hospitals, Medical Clinics and Pharmacies, first appeared on https://www.lexology.com. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) recently issued new regulations for managing pharmaceutical waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”). The rules specify new requirements for hazardous waste management for healthcare facilities that generate pharmaceutical wastes. In issuing these rules, EPA aimed to achieve two objectives: reduce the presence of pharmaceutical compounds in wastewater and balance […]

This post, Target to Pay $7.4 Million for Improperly Disposing Hazardous Waste in Calif. Landfills – Again, first appeared on https://obrag.org. Good ol’ Target. As the giant mega-company was readying the former antique mall for its new Ocean Beach store, over on the environmental side, it was “disposing of batteries, light bulbs, medical waste and other environmentally hazardous materials improperly in landfills across the state” of California. And it got busted – and now it […]

This post, Drugs and syringes have become such a problem in Starbucks bathrooms that the company is installing needle-disposal boxes, first appeared on https://www.businessinsider.com. Starbucks is installing boxes for safe disposal of syringes in the bathrooms of certain locations, following workers’ reports of discarded needles and sometimes concerning conditions. The coffee giant is exploring remedies after employees expressed fears about being pricked by uncapped needles and experiencing related health risks. Starbucks is testing solutions, including installing […]

This post, OCR Fines Providers for HIPAA Violations, Failure to Follow “Basic Security Requirements”, first appeared on https://www.healthcare-informatics.com/. Florida-based Advanced Care Hospitalists PL (ACH) has agreed to pay $500,000 to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for a number of HIPAA compliance failures, including sharing protected health information with an unknown vendor without a business associate agreement. ACH provides contracted internal medicine physicians to hospitals and nursing […]

This post, Target to pay $7.4 million to resolve allegations regarding waste disposal, first appeared on http://www.cbs8.com/. SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Target Corp. has agreed to pay $7.4 million to resolve allegations that it violated terms of a 2011 judgment regarding the company’s handling and disposal of retail hazardous waste, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan announced Wednesday. “This settlement holds Target accountable for this second violation of environmental laws that involve the improper disposal […]

This post, Healthcare Facilities Discover Pain Relief For the Datacenter, first appeared on https://www.infoworld.com. People who work at healthcare facilities suffer from pains of their own, and the source of the pain may surprise you. It is kind of pain has nothing to do with the human body, and the relief cannot come from the medical staff. It’s the pain of managing an aging IT infrastructure. IT administrators have a tough time in healthcare datacenters […]

This post, Hospital Hit with $4.3 Million Fine for “Snail’s Pace” HIPAA Compliance, first appeared on https://www.jdsupra.com/. Healthcare organizations take note: not following your own data security rules can be costly, very costly. And the more time it takes to comply, the faster the fines stack up. An administrative law judge recently upheld the fourth largest HIPAA fine – a $4.3 million penalty – issued to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for not following […]

This post, 1.13M Records Exposed by 110 Healthcare Data Breaches in Q1 2018, first appeared on https://healthitsecurity.com. Around 1.13 million patient records were compromised in 110 healthcare data breaches in the first quarter of 2018, according to data released May 3 in the Protenus Breach Barometer. Healthcare insiders were most likely to snoop on family members—a whopping 77.10 percent of privacy violations in the first quarter. Snooping on fellow co-workers was the second most common insider […]

This post, Did EMS Worker Commit HIPAA Violation With Facebook Post?, first appeared on https://healthitsecurity.com. Did an emergency medical services (EMS) worker in Roane County, Tennessee, commit a HIPAA violation with a Facebook post that described the peculiar location of an emergency response—a chicken coop? The EMS worker was part of a team that responded to a call about Leon Raymond, who had suffered a heart attack in his chicken coop. “The first responders arrived and started […]

This post, 7k patients file HIPAA violations in the past 5 years: 5 things to know, first appeared on https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/. There have been almost 7,100 patient and employee complaints of HIPAA violations in the past five years, which have forced organizations to change their operations and pay substantial fines, according to an analysis by Health Information Privacy/Security Alert. Health Information Privacy/Security Alert reviewed HHS Office for Civil Rights reports and enforcement actions from Jan. 1, […]