While the number of data breaches decreased slightly during the past year, healthcare organizations have improved their ability to control data breach costs, according to the Ponemon Institute's “Fourth Annual Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy & Data Security,” which was funded by ID Experts.

Los Angeles County medical facilities are notifying about 168,500 patients that their information is at risk following the theft of computer equipment from the offices of the county’s contractor, Sutherland Healthcare Solutions, according to the Los Angeles Times and the official notice sent to patients.

Skagit County in Washington state faces a $215,000 fine for violating several HIPAA rules relating to privacy, security and breach notification.

ORLANDO—“If people don’t trust an organization, that organization won’t be able to deliver the care they expect,” said John Houston, vice president of privacy and information security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, speaking at the Health Information and Management Systems Society annual conference.

Since the 2003 HIPAA Privacy Rule came into being, protection of patient privacy has become “table stakes.” 

The federal government is stepping up its efforts to find solutions to improve the ability to match patients with their data.

Health insurer Triple-S Management faces a fine over a security breach at the insurer’s subsidiary that is larger than any imposed for HIPAA violations by the Office for Civil Rights.

ORLANDO--More than seven million patient medical records were breached in 2013, which is a 138 percent increase over 2012, according to Brian Evans, principal consultant at Tom Walsh Consulting, who spoke during a session on breach incident response at the Health Information and Management Systems Society annual conference.