Healthcare IT News just published an interview with Mark Haas, associate director of health information services at Mass General Hospital, one of the premier hospitals in the world. Mark discusses how MGH implemented Biscom Delivery Server to more than double the number of release of information (ROI) requests they can handle with the same staffing. MGH is now handling 52,000 releases per year with the help of BDS.
Another interesting statistic – MGH has reduced their costs for providing these medical records to insurance companies, law firms, and others who request them from $16.08/request down to $5.61 – a 65% savings. MGH also benefits by using BDS to comply with meaningful use objectives.
To see the full case study on MGH, go here.
Lora Bentley from IT Business Edge asked a smattering of people for their opinion on privacy — whether it’s alive or dead. I started thinking about this and to me, privacy is what we make of it — we can choose whether we keep our lives private (as much as it’s possible to do these days) or open ourselves up to the online world. To me, privacy is both alive and dead, and we’re ultimately responsible for it. That’s when a vision of Schrodinger’s cat popped into my mind — pretty esoteric reference to those who did not take quantum mechanics in college, but what can I say, I’m a bit of a nerd.
I also remembered an article that came out not too long ago about some teen who killer her boyfriend because she was drinking and driving. Not only was this a horrible event, for which the girl was going to be charged as a minor (she was only 17), but she posted a picture of herself on Facebook titled “Drunk in Florida” a month later. The judge caught wind of this and changed his decision, denied her youthful offender status, and instead charged her as an adult. Now, this girl, in my opinion, did not choose wisely regarding her online privacy. However, it was her choice. How much of ourselves we put out there is really up to us.
I don’t subscribe to the idea of complete privacy, because these days that’s pretty hard to do (who doesn’t buy an occasional something from Amazon?) However, we do need to be judicious. And of course, when it comes to obeying the law (e.g. HIPAA, SOX, GLBA, etc.), we should also be aware of the consequences if we don’t protect confidential or sensitive information.
File sharing sites have never been known for their security but now physicians are starting to put their patients’ data up on these peer to peer sites, potentially exposing private and confidential information, and clearly violating HIPAA requirements.
Healthcare IT News is reporting on this study and it’s really quite scary: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/docs-file-sharing-risky-business-patient-data
The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) just published its March issue of Peer to Peer magazine. You’ll find an article I authored on data breaches, privacy laws, and how secure file transfer can help companies distribute their confidential information while complying with various legal requirements. You can also use this link to download the specific article as a PDF.
TJX finally settles suits in 41 states for $9.75 million for the huge data breach that exposed up to 94 million accounts. Makes Ben Franklin’s saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” really resonate.
“This settlement ensures that companies cannot write off risk of a data breach as a cost of doing business,” Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. If you look at the risk reward ratio, it’s pretty skewed. It’s good emprical evidence that investing in security policies and tools is definitely worthwhile.
