HIPAA Violations Abounded in 2011

HIPAA violations were rampant in 2011, according to a Forbes report.

The report lists several headlining HIPAA violations:

•    In February, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston paid a $1 million fine after an employee left patient medical records on a train.
•    In April, a physician at Westerly (R.I.) Hospital was fired and fined for posting about a patient online.
•    In July, the University of California, Los Angeles paid $865,000 to settle possible privacy violations from medical records disclosure.
•    In August, a nurse at Oakwood Hospital & Medical Center in Dearborn, Mich., was fired for posting about, but not naming, a patient on Facebook.
•    In September, a $20 million lawsuit was filed against Stanford University over a data breach involving 20,000 patients.
•    In October, two class-action lawsuits were filed against Sutter Health over the theft of a computer containing information on more than four million patients.

Related Articles on HIPAA:

CMS Creates New Fact Sheet for HIPAA 5010 Transition
HHS, CMS Seek Businesses to Test Future HIPAA Transaction Standards

National Institute of Standards and Technology Offers Free HIPAA Toolkit

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