They used to be about as common as ice storms in August. Now they’re like ice storms, in, well, you know. Patient data breaches, that is.
The Ponemon Institute estimated, after a recent survey, that data breaches could be costing the U.S. healthcare industry between $4.2 billion and $8.1 billion a year, or an average of $6.5 billion.
And here we go again in California. An employee at Loma Linda University Medical Center who took home work-related information has forced the healthcare institution to notify 1,336 patients of a possible breach of their protected health information, according to healthdatamanagement.com.
The story reports that the “information included names, dates of birth, addresses, medical record and driver’s license numbers, and some Social Security numbers, according to the university.” Now for the good news: all original documentation has been recovered, and the university fired the employee responsible, it says, according to the story.
And in Texas, protected health information for more than 3,000 patients at San Antonio-based Stone Oak Urgent Care & Family Practice happened to be on five computers that were stolen in October.
Though the theft occurred Oct. 22-23, patients were not notified until Dec. 5, The San Antonio Express-News reported in late December, according to healthdatamanagement.com. Information breached included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, disability codes and diagnoses.
In November an AP story reported that, over the last two years, “health care organizations have reported 364 incidents involving the loss or theft of information ranging from names and addresses to Social Security numbers and medical diagnoses on nearly 18 million patients — equivalent to the population of Florida.”
And in December, Joseph Goedert of healthdatamanagement.com wrote that the U.S. Office for Civil Rights fined Massachusetts General Hospital $1 million for a data breach and Cignet Health of Prince George’s County, Md., $4.3 million for violations of HIPAA policy.
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Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves
