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Stay up to date with the latest healthcare cybersecurity and compliance news from Clearwater.

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.

Unsecure Laptops Still a Major Security Threat For Healthcare

Unsecure Laptops Still a Major Security Threat For Healthcare

Clearwater CyberIntelligence Institute® Study Finds Laptops Still a Significant Data Security Risk for Hospitals and Health Systems

Endpoint data loss, excessive user permissions, and dormant accounts make up 70 percent of all high and critical risk scenarios for laptop vulnerabilities at hospitals and health systems across the country, according to new findings released by the Clearwater CyberIntelligence Institute (CCI), which leverages insights from Clearwater’s proprietary database—the industry’s largest and most complete database focused exclusively on the unique cybersecurity risk profiles of hospitals, Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) and business associates. Despite efforts to make laptops more secure, the CCI study found they remain a Top 10 cybersecurity risk for hospitals and health systems. 

Insurance Captives: Innovation & Cost Savings for Providers

In this interview, Michelle Johns, Chief Risk Officer of IU Health and Bob Chaput, Executive Chairman of Clearwater discuss their innovative work benchmarking risk within and between large health systems. They also explore why insurance captives have become so strategically important to innovation.

Uber Health: Driving Change in Healthcare Transportation

Democratizing healthcare transportation is crucial for patients’ quality of care and quality of life. Providing approximately 10,000 rides per minute, Uber is looking to be a driving force behind healthcare transportation.

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