Capital New York's Dan Goldberg reported last week on the problems with electronic health records. For example, a Columbia University physican inadvertently exposed thousands of patient records by accessing a server at New York Presbyterian Hospital with his personal laptop. The result was the hospital paid $3.3 million and Columbia paid $1.5 million.
Moving patient information into electronic form comes with a greater risk of data breaches, Goldberg writes: "'Because more and more information is becoming electronic, there is a greater risk of breach of loss of that information,' said Ken Rashbaum, an attorney with Barton L.L.P., who specializes in cases related to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and advises hospitals and health systems on how to remain in compliance with state and federal privacy laws."
The healthcare sector is the new place for identity theft, Goldberg reports, because the billing systems are out-of-date.
Also of concern: hackers messing with healthcare technology: "According to a Wired report published in April, Scott Erven, founder and president of SecMedic, 'found drug infusion pumps–for delivering morphine drips, chemotherapy and antibiotics–that can be remotely manipulated to change the dosage doled out to patients; Bluetooth-enabled defibrillators that can be manipulated to deliver random shocks to a patient’s heart or prevent a medically needed shock from occurring; X-rays that can be accessed by outsiders lurking on a hospital’s network; temperature settings on refrigerators storing blood and drugs that can be reset, causing spoilage; and digital medical records that can be altered to cause physicians to misdiagnose, prescribe the wrong drugs or administer unwarranted care.'"
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
