{"id":1962,"date":"2011-03-14T07:00:14","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=1962"},"modified":"2011-03-14T07:00:14","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T15:00:14","slug":"data-breach-how-well-is-health-information-being-protected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/data-breach-how-well-is-health-information-being-protected\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Breach:  How Well is Health Information Being Protected?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Data breaches at hospitals have recently been in the headlines:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1.7 million records from patients, vendors and contractors was stolen in a breach of <a title=\"Data Breach at HHC\" href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703786804576138443731081156.html\" target=\"_blank\">New York City Health and Hospital Corp<\/a> (HHC) information, a system of 14 hospitals. \u00a0The information compromised included names, addresses, social security numbers, patients\u2019 medical histories.<\/li>\n<li>3600 people were affected by a data breach at a <a title=\"Kanawha County West Virginia Hospital\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wsaz.com\/charleston\/headlines\/needs_checkedAG_to_Hold_Presser_to__116232619.html\" target=\"_blank\">hospital <\/a>in Kanahwa County, West Virginia.<\/li>\n<li>84,000 records were compromised in a data breach of <a title=\"Data Breach in Tulsa, Oklahoma\" href=\"http:\/\/www.healthdatamanagement.com\/news\/data-breach-oklahoma-saint-francis-41923-1.html\" target=\"_blank\">hospital information in Tulsa, Oklahoma<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And those are just three recent headlines about data breaches. \u00a0The problem of weakly secured data by health care providers seems to be quite a serious and pervasive problem. \u00a0The <a title=\"HITECH data breach reporting requirement\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/ocr\/privacy\/hipaa\/administrative\/breachnotificationrule\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">HITECH<\/a> law (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health)\u00a0<a title=\"HITECH requirement to report Data Breaches\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/ocr\/\" target=\"_blank\">passed in August 2009<\/a> now requires that any data breach which affects more than 500 individuals must be reported within 60 days from the date of occurrence. \u00a0<a title=\"RedSpin home page\" href=\"http:\/\/redspin.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Redspin <\/a>recently <a title=\"Health Care Data Breach Information\" href=\"http:\/\/www.redspin.com\/docs\/WP_Redspin_2010_Protected_Health_Information_Breach_Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">compiled statistics<\/a> on data breaches reported via HITECH in the health care industry for 2010. \u00a0The number of breaches reported are surprisingly large:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2010 there were 225 data breaches reported by health-care related organizations, affecting more than 6 million people<\/li>\n<li>The problem is everywhere. \u00a0Breaches were reported which occurred in 43 different states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico.<\/li>\n<li>On average, 27,000 people are affected by a single breach<\/li>\n<li>The breaches are primarily driven by malicious intent &#8212; 61 percent are malicious<\/li>\n<li>40 percent of the cases involved business associates inappropriately accessing data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Data breaches are very expensive and can cause huge headaches for those people affected. \u00a0<a title=\"Ponemon Institute\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ponemon.org\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Ponemon Institu<\/a>te <a title=\"Cost of a data breach estimated by Ponemon Institute\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ponemon.org\/local\/upload\/fckjail\/generalcontent\/18\/file\/2010%20Global%20CODB.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">estimates <\/a>that the loss of a single record costs as much as $240.<\/p>\n<div class=\"lightsocial_container\"><div class=\"lightsocial_element\"><a class=\"lightsocial_a\" 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