HI 150 Global Automation of Health Information Discussion

INSTRUCTIONS: Respond to all posts; response to classmates should be thoughtful and advance the discussion, response should make and/or frequent informed references to unit material or scientific literature, follow APA style if resources are used, 75 word minimum in response per post

HI150 Automation of Health Information

CLASSMATE POST #1

HIPAA breaches occur frequently and aren’t always widely known when they do happen. According to HHS, when a violation occurs there is a period where there is an attempted resolution through the entity that committed the infraction (HHS, 2020). The resolution will contain standards for the entity to change policy and make continued reports and communications with HHS regarding the new policy and procedure being followed. The resolution may or may not include a restitution amount.

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The cases of breaches I found did not disclose if there was a restitution amount included. They all included new policy and procedure to amend the infractions that occurred. The infractions ranged from not giving a notice of privacy to using minimum necessary information when leaving messages for patients. All of the cases were resolved and had continued reporting to HHS regarding the new policy.

~Cortney Gardner~

CLASSMATE POST #2

A HIPAA breach is an impermissible disclosure under the Privacy Rule that compromises the security of privacy of the protected health information.

In the year 2019, there were a record number of ransomware attacks and vendor-related breaches. A total of41.4 million patient records were breached in the year 2019. This was a drastic increase as in 2018, just 15 million records were breached. 15 million too many in my book.

The largest breach on record yet happened in the state of Oregon, Magellan Health Data breach totaled 365,000 patients. The reason for this breach was due to a stolen laptop, unsure if it had been encrypted or not. This laptop held 654,000 patient names, contact information, dates of birth, and Medicaid ID numbers. (davis, 2020) The one fortunate piece of information was that health histories were not stored on this laptop.

Florida Orthopedic Institute reported a HIPAA breach consisting of 640,000 patient files. The exposure of this breach was found with malware encrypting data stored on FOI servers.

Penalties for noncompliance are based on the level of negligence. These penalties can range from $100-$50,000 per violation. There is a maximum penalty of $1.5 million per year for violations of an identical provision. These violations can also include criminal charges that may result in jail time. I understand the reason for the huge difference in penalty amounts and I agree with it. The punishment should fit the crime.

~Karen Skinner~ HI 150 Global Automation of Health Information Discussion