In a previous post I discussed the risk of having patient information on smartphones. I ended the post with stating that a HIPAA Risk Assessment can help reveal where security measures are needed. Let’s look at that a little more in depth. Many people are confused as to what a HIPAA Risk Assessment is. Here...
The problem with HIPAA compliance and security in general is that there are so many products and services on the market, how does one decide which are the right ones? Let’s not discuss a HIPAA security service (although we hope you choose HIPAA Secure Now!) but let’s look at after you have taken the first...
I had a conversation with a group of physicians a couple weeks ago that shed some interesting light on where patient information resides and how to protect it. Each of the 5 physicians had a smartphone of various manufacturers. Two had iPhones, two had Android phones and one had a Blackberry phone. I asked the...
Joplin, MO was hit by a massive tornado on Sunday evening that did extensive damage to the St. John’s Regional Medical Center hospital. There are reports that x-rays from the hospital have been found in driveways 70 miles east of the hospital. On Twitter Steven Waldren sheds some very interesting and insightful perspectives: Steven’s quotes gets to...
The IRS audits about 1.5% of all tax returns that are filed. Looked at another way, there is a 98.5% chance that the IRS will not audit your return. Yet even with this very low percentage of people that get audited, most people are very frightened that they will be one of the unlucky individuals....
To be successfully in any business you need a few basic elements. Two of the elements include; customers that value your service and are willing to purchase your services. Secondly, you also need to eliminate or reduce liabilities that can damage or hurt your business. Implementing HIPAA security can help your business The first element...
There is a great post over at Infosec Island regarding a letter that was received from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) after a data breach that occurred at a small medical practice. The breach was the result of a burglary. No details were given on what was stolen or what kind of patient information...
Medical practices are not only tasked with protecting their patient’s health but now are responsible for protecting their patient’s electronic information as well. Protecting data is probably something that most practice employees have not been trained to do nor are they familiar with best security practices. Data security is usually left to IT consultants who...
An article over at KevinMD.com on using Dropbox to store transcriptions has set off a lot of conversation on Twitter asking if Dropbox is HIPAA compliant. Let’s look at what the article references: www.dropbox.com Download the Dropbox software (free) and save files to your Dropbox in the cloud. Access Dropbox files from any computer with a web...
In what appears to be a reoccurring story, another hospital is notifying over 90,000 patients that their personal information has been breached. MidState Medical Center in Meriden, Conn., has notified around 93,000 patients that their information was stored on a USB drive and the drive is now lost. Information on the drive included names, addresses,...
© 2026 · HIPAA Secure Now!
Recent Comments