Healthcare

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), an independent regulator of health and social care in the UK, recently completed a review of the data security standards at the NHS begun in 2015.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) just released a brief on how to manage security incidents involving business associates, from ensuring policies and safeguards are adequate to being notified and responding effectively to a data breach.

The Sixth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy and Security of Healthcare Data by the Ponemon Institute, on behalf of ID Experts, shows the continued targeting of healthcare organizations, due in large part to the high value of healthcare data.

The healthcare industry suffered from 277 data breaches in 2015, with 340% more security incidents and attacks than the average industry. The loss or theft of endpoint devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets, along with human error and malicious insiders, are listed as the top three sources for breached data in healthcare. Facing the upcoming HIPAA audits and increasingly steep penalties, healthcare organizations need to be proactive in...

Healthcare organizations are facing steep regulatory pressure this year. Earlier, we discussed how the resolution agreements over HIPAA violations settled by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), settled between two organizations for $5.4 million, pointed toward steady increase in resolutions expected for this year. This past month, the OCR also announced that the long-awaited Phase 2 HIPAA Audits are now under way....