String of errors made Stanford patient data public
Filed under: Health data, Hospitals, Hot Health Headline, Public records
In The New York Times, Kevin Sack traces the series of errors and lapses in judgement that led to a large-scale data breach at Stanford Hospital, one which went unnoticed for almost a year. Sack’s lead paragraph neatly encapsulates the whole story.
Private medical data for nearly 20,000 emergency room patients at California’s prestigious Stanford Hospital were exposed to public view for nearly a year because a billing contractor’s marketing agent sent the electronic spreadsheet to a job prospect as part of a skills test, the hospital and contractors confirmed this week. The applicant then sought help by unwittingly posting the confidential data on a tutoring Web site.
Since 2009, when federal law began requiring disclosure of medical data breaches involving more than 500 people, Sack reports that about 330 incidents have been reported on an HHS website. A CSV file of the data is available.
Globe photographer finds medical records in landfill
Filed under: Health journalism, Hospitals, Hot Health Headline
The Boston Globe’s Liz Kowalczyk tells the story of how one of the paper’s staff photographers stumbled upon a massive medical privacy breach while dumping his trash.
Photo by D’Arcy Norman via Flickr
As Tinker Ready points out on Boston Health News, it’s a reminder that stories are everywhere … and shredders are not. Kowalcyzyk traced the documents to a billing intermediary.
Kowalcyzk uses the landfill scene to demonstrate just how difficult it is for hospital officials to keep confidential information from slipping through the cracks.
The photographer said he saw health and insurance records from at least four hospitals and their pathology groups — Milford, Holyoke, Carney, and Milton — mostly dated 2009. The Globe notified the hospitals. It is unclear how many other hospitals’ records might have been discarded in the dump.
Hensley explores HIT-related privacy breaches
Filed under: Health data, Health journalism, Hospitals, Hot Health Headline, Studies
NPR health blogger Scott Hensley writes that the HHS’ running list of “breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals” reads like a sort of police blotter for health wonks, and explores a few of the more interesting cases.
Related: FDA committee recommends anonymous HIT error database
As expected, the FDA’s Health IT Policy Committee endorsed a database to confidentially record reports of HIT-related errors. A few months, another committee and the Office of the National Coordinator still sit between the recommendations and action.
Fawcett speaks out on cancer, media and privacy
ProPublica senior reporter Charles Ornstein, who is vice president of AHCJ’s board of directors, interviewed Farrah Fawcett about her fight against cancer and her accompanying struggles with media and privacy last August. A story based on the interview was released Monday in ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times. A producer who worked with Fawcett on a related upcoming NBC documentary had asked that the story be held until five days before the documentary’s Friday release.
Above all, in a firm voice that betrayed no hint of her terminal illness, Fawcett described how she was deprived of the choice that most other cancer patients have: when, and even whether, to share information with family, friends or strangers.
“It’s much easier to go through something and deal with it without being under a microscope,” she said. “It was stressful. I was terrified of getting the chemo. It’s not pleasant. And the radiation is not pleasant.”
In the interview, Fawcett talked about the private sting operation she ran to help track down the UCLA Medical Center employee who was leaking details about her medical care to a tabloid and her frustration with the hospital’s aggressive efforts to encourage her to donate money for a hospital foundation in her name.
Fawcett said she decided to speak up about the ordeal because she wants to see the Enquirer charged criminally for inducing UCLA workers to invade her records. “They obviously know it’s like buying stolen goods,” she said. “They’ve committed a crime. They’ve paid her money.”
Fawcett describes the sting to Ornstein in the video below. Ornstein will appear Tuesday on CNN’s Showbiz Tonight at 11 p.m. ET to discuss the story.
TV report leads to $2.25 million HIPAA settlement
Filed under: Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
A report by Bob Segall of WTHR-Indianapolis prompted the federal investigation that led to CVS Pharmacy’s agreement to pay $2.25 million for violating consumers’ privacy by not properly disposing of “protected health information such as labels from prescription bottles and old prescriptions.”
The acting director of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights said Segall’s award-winning investigation “formed the basis of the [federal] investigation.”
Segall won a 2006 Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism for his investigation. He also wrote about how he reported the story in an article for AHCJ: How we did it: Diving into prescription privacy.
CVS will pay $2.25 million and initiate a plan to protect consumer privacy. (Photo by afagen via Flickr)
“I think I was as surprised as anyone when i got a call from HHS” telling him about the settlement. Segall says that for the past two-and-a-half years, he has been calling the Office of Civil Rights every 60 to 90 days to find out the status of its investigation.
“After two years, I wasn’t expecting their investigation would lead to anything,” Segall says. “It’s not every day that they impose fines for HIPAA violations.”
He says the victims in Indiana were pleasantly surprised, though some are disappointed they won’t be seeing any of the $2.25 million.
“As a journalist who deals with the repercussions of HIPAA on almost a daily basis, there are so many times brick walls are put up for journalists” in the name of HIPAA privacy rules. Segall says he is gratified to see the law “really does have some teeth and the Office of Civil Rights is really going to pursue cases like this one.” While he says we’ve all seen alleged violations in which nothing is done, this settlement will send a message to companies that deal with consumer health information.
“I think it’s nice to see that this law, that for journalists does nothing but stand in the way, does help consumers.”
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