Patient privacy news and information

In response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Drug Enforcement Administration argues that the "third-party doctrine" revokes privacy protections from citizens' prescription medical records.
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Fast-moving legislative action to track controlled-substance prescriptions in the name of countering addiction has the American Civil Liberties Union concerned about the privacy of Pennsylvania's patients.
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In the run-up to the Sept. 23 enforcement date for a host of revisions to federal health information privacy laws, one group—clinical laboratories—will get something of a respite, and another—pharmaceutical manufacturers—some regulatory relief.
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It seems that every time researchers estimate how often a medical mistake contributes to a hospital patient's death, the numbers come out worse. A study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety says between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer...
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In today's society, technology has become deeply woven into the fabric of our daily lives. At home, at work and while traveling, we rely on our smartphones, tablets and computers for news, information, conversation and entertainment. But information technology is not yet close to reaching its...
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It's the little things that add up. Like the minutes it takes annually to deal with each patient's HIPAA notice of privacy practices for protected healthcare information. Annually, that task eats up about 30.7 million hours of healthcare workers' and...
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One warm night in mid-July, more than 4 million patient records breezed out the door of the Advocate Medical Group administrative office in the arms of an unidentified thief who stole four computers from the largest medical group in Illinois. The 1,100-physician medical group based in Park Ridge is...
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The recent massive data breach at Advocate Health Care has already had legal consequences. Downers Grove, Ill.-based Advocate and a subsidiary, Advocate Medical Group, are facing a state class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of two named plaintiffs and 4 million individuals whose personally...
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A substantial number of Americans are worried about the security of their medical information.
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Regarding “Patients care what their electronic healthcare data are used for, survey shows”, to quote something a friend said when sharing this, “Hello, Captain Obvious.” Of course we care how and...
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