Weekly round-up: Three breaches. Yes, three
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| Beth Walsh, Editor, CMIO |
From the FBI investigation in Florida of record-selling to a forgotten notebook containing Social Security numbers in Ohio to a rogue thumb drive in Texas, it seems the incidence of data breaches shows no sign of slowing down.
Personally, I found the fact that authorities in Osceola County said that Florida Hospital did not cooperate with their investigation because of HIPAA laws particularly disturbing. That doesn't seem the best way for a facility to handle a breach.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) redesigned its Medicare.gov website, including enhanced search features and improved functionality for mobile devices to make content more accessible for beneficiaries and their families. They say that healthcare typically operates about 10 years behind other industries when it comes to technology but this consideration of mobile devices is very telling and very timely for the agency. The overall goal, according to acting administrator, Marilyn Tavenner, is helping site visitors get more control over their healthcare. Here, here.
Speaking of other industries, a look at decision support outside of healthcare offers new insights that are generalizable to healthcare provider decisions, such as assessing new situations and time pressure with incomplete information. According to findings published in Medical Informatics and Decision Making, complex, high-level decision-making has common features across disciplines as seemingly disparate as defense, business and healthcare.
The authors also found two overall themes related to implementation: continual system improvements and effective user training. "Although these are not new lessons for CDS research, their recurrence in non-clinical decision support research should strengthen them as a priority in CDS," say the authors.
Is your facility doing everything it can to prevent a data breach? Please share your experience.
Beth Walsh, editor
bwalsh@trimedmedia.com
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.