House Democrat seeks hearing on CHS data breach

A House Democrat seeks a hearing to investigate the recent data breach at Community Health Ssytems which impacted 4.5 million patients.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who is the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asking for the hearing to identify ways to better protect patient data.

"Cybersecurity threats are an ongoing challenge for both the federal government and the private sector," Cummings wrote. "I believe an investigation of the data security breach at [CHS] will help the committee learn from these witnesses about security vulnerabilities they have experienced in order to better protect our federal information technology assets." He cited the potential security vulnerabilities of the federal health insurance exchange.

Read Cummings' letter in full.

 

Beth Walsh,

Editor

Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.

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