This post, Making Hospitals a Safe Place to Work – Preparedness for Hospital Staff, first appeared on http://nursing.advanceweb.com/. From workplace violence to bloodborne pathogen exposure, OSHA and other organizations are paying more attention to hospital safety protocols that go beyond awareness for patients. Dangers that exist in healthcare settings are typically thought of as hospital-acquired infections, biohazard exposure, incidence of medical errors and fall risks. These quagmires remain worthy of attention and protocols that promote safety, […]

This post, Good Incident Response Plans Are a Must, first appeared on https://www.renalandurologynews.com/. Tom Walsh, founder and managing partner of tw-Security, a health care privacy and information security firm in Overland Park, Kansas, related an incident that shows how the best intentions can go wrong. A small health care clinic that was acquired by a larger group had not switched to the purchaser’s medical records system. The clinic had a ransomware breach on a Friday afternoon, […]

This post, Cloud for healthcare presses on but is slowed by HIPAA anxiety, first appeared on https://searchhealthit.techtarget.com/. Facing mounting pressure to take steps toward the healthcare cloud, hospital systems find themselves balancing modern infrastructure trends with HIPAA safeguards. Imagine a mortgage company telling a household it was too slow in moving to the cloud: Cut the cable cord and start streaming! Buy a smart speaker to order pizza! Have backyard security cameras upload footage to […]

This post, Are your vendors HIPAA compliant? Find out before it’s too late, first appeared on https://www.dentistryiq.com/. Organizations operating within dentistry and the healthcare industry more generally face constant regulatory pressure at the federal and state levels. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), for example, sets rules relating to the safeguarding of protected health information (PHI) that significantly impact the way organizations collect, store, and transmit their patients’ medical data. Failure to abide by […]

This post, LabCorp’s Network Security Breach May Have Exposed PHI of Millions, first appeared on https://healthitsecurity.com/. After recently dodging a legal bullet over an alleged HIPAA violation, LabCorp is now facing a network security breach that forced the North Carolina-based laboratory diagnostics firm to shut down its IT network, possibly placing PHI of millions of people at risk. By Fred Donovan July 17, 2018 – After recently dodging a legal bullet over an alleged HIPAA violation, […]

This post, How to Ensure Your Healthcare Cloud Storage Stays HIPAA Compliant, first appeared on https://healthtechmagazine.net/. As healthcare professionals continue to embrace digital technologies to safeguard their patients’ information, there is an industrywide need to ensure digital ecosystems are compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This is particularly true as healthcare providers pivot to cloud storage, in addition to on-premises options. This move can help them prepare for precision medicine and population […]

This post, 2018 HIPAA Compliance: How to Keep Your ePHI Protected,  first appeared on https://healthtechmagazine.net/. There has been quite a fuss lately over offering patients greater access to their health records, particularly with the introduction of Apple’s EHR app, which promises to bring electronic health records into patients’ pockets and introduce the era of bring-your-own-data in healthcare. But often that desire to bring patients into the fold gets quashed by a fear of cybersecurity and HIPAA […]

This post, When medical devices get hacked, hospitals often don’t know it, first appeared on http://www.healthcareitnews.com/. The threat to medical devices is real and happening now – and it’s a patient safety issue, much more than one of HIPAA compliance. The past three months have seen a record high in medical device recalls, increasing 126 percent in the first quarter of 2018 from last year, according to the Stericycle Recall Index. The biggest culprit was software, […]

This post, 5 steps to get a handle on your practice’s cyber vulnerability, first appeared on https://wire.ama-assn.org/. March 2, 2018 A staggering 83 percent of physicians recently told AMA researchers that their practices have experienced a cyberattack of some type. The 1,300 physicians surveyed also said not enough cybersecurity support is coming from the government that will hold them accountable for a patient information breach. But concise, actionable advice is available to help medical practices […]