WINNIPEG – A former Manitoba Health employee who accessed the medical records of his estranged daughter has been fined $7,500. The 58-year-old accused, a retired city police officer, was convicted after trial earlier this year of one count of accessing personal health information in violation of the Personal Health Information Act.
Read More
The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario recently released two decisions all healthcare providers in Ontario should read. Decision 49 is monumental. For the first time, the IPC has ordered a patient to destroy records using the ‘recipient’ rules under the health privacy legislation.
Read More
TORONTO – Thales, a leader in critical information systems, cybersecurity and data security, is providing hardware-based encryption technology to North York General Hospital (NYGH) to facilitate the secure exchange of information between the hospital’s physicians, healthcare staff and patients.
Read More
TORONTO – It’s not just hospitals that have been targeted by hackers using ransomware to disable computer systems holding patient records. Doctors’ offices, too, have been hit, with thousands of records becoming inaccessible, says the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA).
Read More
Healthcare information is incredibly valuable. That’s one of the reasons why hackers are targeting clinics and hospitals so often, and why healthcare facilities are more vulnerable to ransomware than many other organizations.
Read More
TORONTO – Eddie Soltani (pictured) was about to fill a prescription given to his wife when he looked at the the back of the document and found the names, birth dates and health card numbers of 60 other patients printed there.
Read More
TORONTO – As of October 1, 2017, all health information custodians in Ontario, such as regulated health professionals, hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities, will be required to notify the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) when personal health information is lost, stolen or used or disclosed without authority.
Read More
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Hackers demanded $30,000 from the Erie County Medical Center during a massive cyber-attack in April, when ransomware shut down the hospital’s computers. The medical centre didn’t pay the fee, but it did spend $5 million on new hardware, software and services to recover its data and protect itself from future intrusions.
Read More
London, UK – Even though Great Britain’s National Health Service prohibits doctors from using the Internet for transmitting patient information, the BBC reports that a significant number of physicians are using WhatsApp and other web-based programs to communicate with each other.
Read More
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia Health Authority has been contacting 337 people after six employees looked up the personal health information of patients. It was found that the information wasn’t needed for the work being done by the staff members.
Read More