Privacy & Security
A bill to exempt doctors from complying with the Federal Trade Commission's Red Flags Rule, slated to go into effect June 1, was introduced earlier this week.
The Department of Veterans Affairs began on-site inspections of its contractors' security procedures this week following two recent data breaches that put at risk the financial identities of 4,000 veterans, Roger Baker, VA's CIO, said Thursday.
Healthcare providers should encrypt patient information when they share it with another provider, even in a case of the direct exchange of personal health information or data that is not facilitated by a health information exchange or other third-party organization.
Roger Baker, CIO of the Department of Veterans Affairs, believes he has the technical solution that will turn around many of the information security problems that have plagued VA for years and will help ensure the department does a better job of protecting its network and sensitive data.
The American Medical Association and others filed suit against the Federal Trade Commission on Friday, just 10 days before the June 1 deadline to comply with the Red Flags Rule.
The Department of Veterans Affairs will step up enforcement of its contractors to ensure they meet information security requirements for protecting veterans' personal health data.
With the introduction of electronic health records, health data storage is expected to be high on providers' to-do lists. However, storing this data will be challenging, said Bill Burns, senior director for Hitachi Data Systems.
A former contract security guard at the Carrell Clinic in Dallas has pleaded guilty to hacking hospital computers containing confidential patient information.
The Affordable Care Act offers effective new technology and sophisticated data analysis for reducing healthcare fraud that will build on programs that helped Medicare and Medicaid recover billions of dollars in 2009, according to the government's annual Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program (HCFAC) report.
The White House has begun developing a strategy for securing online transactions and stemming identity fraud that pays particular heed to the importance of building a trusted arena for electronic healthcare transactions.
