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AHIMA Advantage: Anticipating Privacy, Security Changes Ahead—Going Back To Basics
Other developing issues could affect privacy and security rules, says Wes Morris, CHP, CIPM, HCISPP, Managing Principal Consultant, Clearwater, Mountain Home, ID. For example, opium reporting rules are evolving differently state by state, creating a challenge for HIM professionals to understand which rules apply to them and how they sync with federal regulations, says Morris, who also co-chairs the Privacy and Security Practice Council."...I would encourage the industry as a whole to, first and foremost, make sure what you have in place is working for you and meeting the needs of two groups: patients, whose information you are there to protect and manage, and the staff of your organization, who have to work within your policies and procedures."
Roundtable: Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity continues to be an important and hot topic in health care, especially in the HTM community. TechNation quizzed some industry experts and educators about cybersecurity in search of information and tips to help readers. Participating in the roundtable discussion on cybersecurity are Medigate Co-founder and CEO Jonathan Langer, Cynerio CEO and Founder Leon Lerman, Clearwater Chief Risk Officer and Senior Vice President of Professional Services Jon Moore, CyberMDX Vice President of Business Development Safi Oranski, Nuvolo Vice President of Product Marketing Ben Person, Texas State Technical College-Waco Associate Professor of Biomedical Equipment Technology Garrett Seeley and Extreme Networks Director of Healthcare Solutions Bob Zemke.
Cyber Threat Firm’s Error Exposes Health Data of 1.6M Puerto Ricans
As many as 1.6 million individuals in Puerto Rico may have their health information exposed because of a snafu by an information technology vendor. Inmediata Health Group operates a database that captures current cyber threats and assesses, remediates and monitors risks to critical business systems and data. In January, Inmediata became aware that protected data was viewable online because a web page setting permitted search engines to index internal webpages used for business operations.
Misconfigured IT (Again) Leads to Big Health Data Breach
An all-too-common type of data security mistake - a misconfigured IT setting - has landed a Puerto Rico-based clearinghouse and cloud software services provider at the top of federal regulators' list of largest health data breaches so far this year, in an incident impacting nearly 1.6 million individuals.
Laid Off Worker Pleads Guilty in Medicaid Incident | Former Employee at Contractor Damaged Oregon Medicaid System After Losing Job
A former Hewlett Packard Enterprise worker has pleaded guilty in federal court to intentionally damaging an Oregon Medicaid system and causing it to fail a few days after he was laid off by the vendor.
Health & Human Services Lowers Fines for HIPAA Violations
The Department of Health and Human Services reduced its fines for violations of HIPAA — the law requiring health care industries to protect customer data, according to a notice this week in the Federal Register. Driving the news: The new rules reduce a maximum fine of $1.5 million to a maximum fine of $250,000.
HHS Lowers Some HIPAA Fines | Experts Weigh In on Potential Impact of the Changes
The Department of Health and Human Services is lowering its top fines for less egregious HIPAA violations. Meanwhile, it's pledging to make a "big push" to enforce patients' right to access their health records. HHS will keep its revised interpretation of the HITECH Act penalty caps in mind "for all enforcement operations," says Roger Severino, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, which enforces HIPAA.
Texas Attracts Most Healthcare Data Hacks But It Is Fighting Back
Cybercriminals stole the health records of more than 9 million Americans last year, according to data from U.S. Health and Human Services. The data collected includes breaches from hospitals, health insurers and other health organizations covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which makes breaches public when they affect more than 500 people.
Clearwater Further Streamlines Enterprise Risk Analysis for Health Systems with Its Patent-Pending “Component Expert System” Technology
As the healthcare industry continues to be targeted by cyber attacks, Clearwater has released new, breakthrough technology that provides hospitals and health systems with a more intelligent view into all of the processes, people, locations, technology and components that can pose a data security risk to an information system. Clearwater’s new Component Expert System (CES), embedded in its IRM|Analysis® software, enables hospitals and health systems to complete the security risk analysis (SRA) process more efficiently across the enterprise by logically grouping similar information system components based on their properties and associated controls. The patent-pending technology automatically identifies relevant cyber and information risk scenarios, thereby facilitating a more effective risk assessment process.
Laptop Vulnerabilities Still Pose Great Security Risk to Health Data
New research from the Clearwater Cyber Intelligence Institute finds that laptop computers continue to present a substantial data security risk for the healthcare industry. Clearwater operates a database that holds millions of risk records from hospitals, delivery systems, and business associates. Data mining and informatics teams at the firm use analytics to identify common security weaknesses in provider organizations, insurance companies, and other entities.
Laptops Pose Serious Data Security Risk to Hospitals, Health Systems
Hospitals and health systems are continuing to struggle with laptop vulnerabilities, caused primarily by endpoint data loss, excessive user permissions, and dormant accounts, according to new findings from Clearwater CyberIntelligence Institute. In fact, 70 percent of all high and critical risk scenarios for laptop vulnerabilities were caused by those risk areas. CCI researchers analyzed data from Clearwater’s proprietary database, which is exclusively focused on cybersecurity risks to hospitals, Integrated Delivery Networks, and business associates.
Security Risk Analyses Can Offer Significant Findings by Wes Morris
ONE OF THE critical information governance (IG) functions is successful execution of an organization’s privacy and security responsibilities. Chief among these responsibilities is to conduct an accurate and thorough assessment of the potential risks and vulnerabilities to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health information(ePHI). This assessment is a foundation upon which other security processes will depend. Poor or non-existent risk analysis processes have been a finding in 89 percent of settlement agreements and civil money penalties imposed by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR). In 2018 alone, the cost was over $24 million for organizations that failed to implement effective risk analysis or risk management processes.
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