Editor’s Note: Expect to an increasing number of penalties, through regulatory action and through litigation, for breaches of information security.
From: GovernmentHealthIT
Erin McCann, Contributing Editor
In what’s been billed as the first HIPAA breach settlement involving fewer than 500 patients, Hospice of North Idaho (HONI) will pay the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) $50,000 to settle potential HIPAA violations stemming from a 2010 incident, HHS officials announced Wednesday.
After an unencrypted company laptop containing the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 441 patients had been stolen in June 2010, officials at the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) began its investigation and found that HONI had not conducted adequate risk analysis to safeguard patient ePHI.
“This action sends a strong message to the healthcare industry that, regardless of size, covered entities must take action and will be held accountable for safeguarding their patients’ health information,” said OCR Director Leon Rodriguez. “Encryption is an easy method for making lost information unusable, unreadable and undecipherable.”
In what’s been billed as the first HIPAA breach settlement involving fewer than 500 patients, Hospice of North Idaho (HONI) will pay the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) $50,000 to settle potential HIPAA violations stemming from a 2010 incident, HHS officials announced Wednesday.
After an unencrypted company laptop containing the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 441 patients had been stolen in June 2010, officials at the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) began its investigation and found that HONI had not conducted adequate risk analysis to safeguard patient ePHI.
“This action sends a strong message to the healthcare industry that, regardless of size, covered entities must take action and will be held accountable for safeguarding their patients’ health information,” said OCR Director Leon Rodriguez. “Encryption is an easy method for making lost information unusable, unreadable and undecipherable.”
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