patient data

Iowa state officials are looking further into the source of a recent break in to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics IT system. The school apparently believes that it was a university employee who broke into the school's system.  In the wake of this incident, however, UIHC believes that it needs to the take stronger measures to prevent this from happening again. For that reason, UIHC has invited state auditor David Vaudt to increase means of access to the hospital's information …

In what is becoming an uncomfortably familiar scenario, Emory University officials sent out a mass mailing to cancer patients warning them that a laptop containing their personal health information had been stolen. The laptop was stolen from an office of Electronic Registry Systems (ERS), a business contractor in Ohio, which serves Emory Hospital, Emory Crawford Long Hospital and Grady Memorial Hospital. Records lost included names, social security numbers, patient addresses, medical data …

Welcome to 2007! As always, our industry is in a ferment, but this year promises to be particularly interesting, with care delivery models shifting (retail clinics), medical practices going back to old-timey hands-on care (concierge models) and …

Despite all of the publicity--and strong hints from federal agencies--doctors continue to resist using electronic medical records in their practice, according to a study released yesterday. True, one in four doctors use medical records in their practice, and that number should grow steadily over the next year or two, according to researchers with the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. However, they found that only one in ten physicians are actually leveraging …

A GAO report found that Medicare needs to keep better tabs on how contractors manage patients' health data. The study found that over 40 percent of Medicare contractors and state Medicaid agencies experienced a breach of patient data in the last two years, though it did not examine the severity of the breaches. "According to the study, 47 percent of Medicare Advantage contractors reported privacy breaches within the past two years, as did 44 percent of Medicaid agencies, 42 percent of …

Business Objects released a new application designed to help hospitals and other healthcare providers integrate their financial and patient data. The system, which is based on technology that Business Objects acquired in the deal for SRC Software, is intended to help with activity based-cost accounting. This allows providers to analyze clinical service line profitability. Article

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) introduced legislation that would encourage the formation of a national health information network by creating non-profit cooperative banks where medical records would be stored. Supporters say the Independent Health Record Bank Act would make healthcare more efficient by centralizing records and also introduce a needed element of neutrality. Under Brownback's legislation, consumers would have the final say over what is done with their medical records. The …

Washington Business Journal reports that the Maryland/DC Collaborative for Healthcare Information Technology is studying the feasibility of a regional network that would allow doctors in the DC and Maryland area to share electronic records and other patient data. The group hopes to raise $5 million in funding. Article

HealthGrades launched its hospital price comparison service this week to so-so reviews, just ahead a similar service planned by CMS. Hospitals remain uncomfortable with the idea and it remains to be seen how consumers will react. In Boston, Partners Healthcare has come up with a plan likely to generate a great deal of interest and possibly some controversy. According to an internal memo obtained by the Boston Globe, the provider plans to sell aggregated patient data to the …

The Connecting for Health Initiative said it has successfully shared thousands of clinical case files between regional health organizations in three areas of the country. Boston's MA-SHARE, the Indiana Health Information Exchange and the Mendocino Health Records Exchange participated in the project. The decentralized system used by Connecting for Health relies on a Record Locater Service (RLS), rather than a unique patient identifier.

Organizers said the tests show that a …