David Ting was sitting in the doctors’ lounge of a hospital in the Midwest U.S. when he noticed a man cursing at a computer station, pounding the keys with obvious frustration. Ting, co-founder and CTO of healthcare IT security company Imprivata, asked what the problem was.
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ST. JOHN’S – Eastern Health, in Newfoundland, says it has found a missing USB flash drive containing the personal information of thousands of employees – it was in a file folder in the Human Resources department the whole time. The mishap cost the health authority more than $100,000.
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WINNIPEG – Manitoba’s auditor general says more work needs to be done to protect the personal information of patients at the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA). A new report from Norm Ricard (pictured) says there are cybersecurity holes in the systems being used by the WRHA.
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LOS ANGELES – Hackers broke into UCLA Health System’s computer network and may have accessed sensitive information on as many as 4.5 million patients, hospital officials said.
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TORONTO – Ontario’s government has announced a plan to improve privacy and accountability in the healthcare system with new measures to protect the personal health information of patients. The province intends to introduce amendments to the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) to strengthen privacy rules, make it easier to prosecute offenders and increase fines.
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ORILLIA, Ont. – Three employees of Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital are no longer working at the medical centre, while another employee is under further investigation, after they were caught snooping into the health records of over 50 patients over the past five years. All four privacy breaches were identified through routine hospital audits.
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VICTORIA – Island Health, the health authority on Vancouver Island, says an employee who had nothing to do with the care of 39 patients accessed their health records out of curiosity about friends or neighbours.
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WINNIPEG – A pharmacist at the Grace Hospital “inappropriately accessed” the personal health information of 56 people, said the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.
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NORTH BAY, Ont. – The first person ever prosecuted under Ontario’s health privacy law for allegedly prying into almost 6,000 patient records no longer faces charges because of the “curious” way the Crown handled the case, a court has ruled.
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TORONTO – In a landmark decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal has granted patients the right to sue hospitals over privacy breaches. The unanimous ruling said provincial health privacy laws are not a roadblock to patients who want to seek justice in the courts when their medical records are snooped into by hospital workers.
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