patient records news from FierceHealthcare

Despite vows that it was getting things in order, UCLA Medical Center still seems to have a problem with protecting the privacy of its medical records. According to a new report from the California Read more...

A Seattle-based health system has agreed to pay a $100,000 HIPAA fine--as well as improve its medical data security--after failing to properly secure data backup tapes, disks and laptops. During 2005 Read more...

Recently, identity thieves have become increasingly focused on stealing medical records--and have begun using better methods to get patient data, too. Medical records offer a rich trove of Read more...

When a hospital treats celebrities, it's no surprise that employees will be tempted to get a peek at their records--as happened recently when employees improperly looked into records on singer Read more...

It seems that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center doesn't take disloyalty well. A month after a six-OB/GYN practice based at its UPMC Mercy facility it was moving to rival West Penn Read more...

The Kansas Supreme Court yesterday decided to temporarily block a grant jury from obtaining access to patient records from a physician who's one of the few in the U.S. providing late-term abortions. Read more...

Hospital costs and mortality rates are going down under CMS's pay-for-performance project, according to a new analysis. Under the Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration project, which began in Read more...

> The Bush Administration's veto of the S-CHIP expansion could cost Tennessee hospitals $150 million. Read more...

Hospitals that focus too tightly on cutting costs may create preventable problems such as medication errors and hospital-acquired infections, according to a new study by two Boston-area hospitals. To gather data, researchers studied four hospitals, including two urban teaching hospitals and two suburban hospitals, looking at 6,841 patient records over 12 months. The study found that when patient-to-nurse ratios at one of the four unnamed hospitals studied climbed 10 percent, the hospital …

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Almost 80 percent of hospitalized children get meds only approved for adult use, according to a new study. Researchers with the Pediatric Health Information Systems Research Group looked at patient records from 31 major children's hospitals from the year 2004, focusing on 90 drugs that are often prescribed for children or have been targeted by the FDA for pediatric study. Children are most typically given adult painkillers, nutrients and gastrointestinal agents, the study concluded. …

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