Hospital Slammed With $218,000 HIPAA Fine

greg9891

On Nov. 16, 2012, OCR received a complaint alleging noncompliance with the HIPAA by medical center workforce members. "Specifically, the complaint alleged that workforce members used an Internet-based document sharing application to store documents containing electronic protected health information of at least 498 individuals without having analyzed the risks associated with such a practice," the OCR statement says.
OCR's subsequent investigation determined that the medical center "failed to timely identify and respond to the known security incident, mitigate the harmful effects of the security incident and document the security incident and its outcome."
"Organizations must pay particular attention to HIPAA's requirements when using internet-based document sharing applications," says Jocelyn Samuels, OCR director in the statement. "In order to reduce potential risks and vulnerabilities, all workforce members must follow all policies and procedures, and entities must ensure that incidents are reported and mitigated in a timely manner."
Separately, on Aug. 25, 2014, St. Elizabeth's Medical Center submitted notification to OCR regarding abreach involving unencrypted ePHI stored on a former hospital workforce member's personal laptop and USB flash drive, affecting 595 individuals. The OCR "wall of shame" website of health data breaches impacting 500 or more individuals says the incident involved a theft.

colemic

That what, just a few days of operational cost that they bill patients and insurance... they won't even blink at that fine.