Privacy & Security

The Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) is slated to release updates on Dec. 16 to its Common Security Framework (CSF), which officials say is the most comprehensive and widely adopted security framework in the U.S. healthcare industry.

eHealthTrust opened its first large-scale health record bank (HRB), a secure repository where consumers can store and control their health information, in Phoenix last month. "We know the demand is there," said William Yasnoff, MD, founder of eHealthTrust, noting that thus far, a modest amount of local marketing to generate visibility has drawn "good reception from a small number of folks."

Laptop theft is the most prevalent cause of the breach of health information affecting more than 500 people, according to the Health & Human Services Department, which last year began tracking data breaches by public and private healthcare organizations.

A new report from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) offers recommendations for reducing or eliminating "tensions" between healthcare IT vendors and their customers – specifically with regard to indemnity and error management.


Patient Privacy Rights, the health privacy watchdog, has enlisted the help of Zogby International to conduct an online survey of more than 2,000 adults to identify their views on privacy, access to health information, and healthcare IT. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of individual choice and control over personal health information.

Medical practices have work to do when it comes to conducting risk analysis - an objective required for meeting meaningful use - according to the 2010 HIMSS Security Survey.

The Medical Society of Delaware is making web-based tools available to its members to boost doctor-patient communication and is also providing free personal health records to all state residents.

One of the largest recent security breaches of personal health information (PHI), involving 280,000 individuals, is on the surface a "pretty low-risk scenario," says one privacy expert. But, he acknowledges, "these things are like an onion: the more layers you peel back, the stinkier it gets."

It has been almost two years since Congress passed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) – an unprecedented piece of legislation lawmakers hoped would catapult the advance of healthcare IT.

The nation's healthcare IT chief, David Blumenthal, MD, acknowledged that achieving meaningful use of health IT would be hard work, and then told his audience of more than 600 health system and hospital CIOs and IT managers there would be even harder work ahead.