Latest California Healthline Stories
Center for Democracy & Technology’s McGraw Discusses Health Data Privacy Challenges
Deven McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, spoke with California Healthline about the challenges of protecting health data privacy.
Spotlight on New PHR Model Privacy Notice
To help address consumer privacy concerns, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has released a Personal Health Record Model Privacy Notice that allows providers of Web-based PHRs to inform consumers about their data sharing and privacy and security policies.
EHR Security Measure Might Have Hidden Consequences
The intent of SB 850 is relatively simple, its author Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) said yesterday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
“Specifically, the bill requires the electronic health record to log a change or deletion, and that change or deletion note needs to include the identity of whoever made the change,” Leno said, adding “Without these requirements and protections, there could be real concern for the well-being of the patient.”
Changes to an EHR can go unnoticed and can be harder to trace than changes made to paper records, according to Leno.
Driver’s License Numbers Among Lost Records
The California Department of Public Health has never had the kind of loss of medical records that it had yesterday, according to Kevin Reilly, Chief Deputy for Policy and Programs at CDPH.
“We’ve had much smaller instances where a laptop was stolen,” Reilly said. “But nothing like this.”
A magnetic tape was mailed to the Capitol from West Covina (near Los Angeles), but when it arrived in Sacramento, it was just an empty envelope.
HHS Issues Rule Aligning HITECH Privacy Language With HIPAA
Hoping to beef up its enforcement of already-existing privacy laws covering health information, the federal government published a rule that aligns HIPAA provisions with new, more stringent regulations in the federal stimulus package.
Privacy Breaches at UCLA Highlight Need for Action on Privacy Throughout UC System
Kathleen Billingsley of the California Department of Public Health’s Center for Healthcare Quality, Roxanne Moster of UCLA and Patrick Schlesinger of the University of California discussed security breaches with California Healthline.
Health IT Initiatives Less Likely To Be Hijacked, Officials Say
Health IT systems are less susceptible to the kind of hijacking that put San Francisco’s computer systems in limbo for nine days last month, according to health officials. Security regulations in HIPAA guard against it, they say.
California Officials Advance Efforts To Rein In Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing Firms
Bonnie Sorensen of the Department of Public Health, Linda Avey, co-founder of a genetic testing company, Gail Javitt of Johns Hopkins University and Matthew Daynard of the Federal Trade Commission discuss genetic testing for consumers.
California Researchers Say New VA Policy Hurts Cancer Studies
The Department of Veterans Affairs maintains that new restrictions on cancer data are intended to shore up patient privacy protections. Researchers argue that the rules will stymie data collection efforts in California, the source of about half of cases reported to a U.S. registry.
VA Data Theft Raises Privacy Questions
The recent theft of millions of veterans’ and military personnel’s records has drawn attention to security practices at the Department of Veterans Affairs, as efforts begin to determine the extent of the potential damage and how they can prevent future incidents.