Posts Tagged ‘privacy’

States with laws to protect patients’ confidentiality may be discouraging hospitals from adopting electronic medical record (EMR) systems by up to 30 percent and may hinder the federal government’s aim for interoperability, according to researchers at two universities.

The stimulus bill, enacted Feb. 17, allocates nearly $20 billion in funding for facilities and providers to adopt standardized EMR systems. Only 1.5 percent of hospitals have a comprehensive system while 8 percent have a basic system that includes provider notes, according to the March 25 New England Journal of Medicine.

Read more »

CVS, the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chain, will pay the U.S. government a $2.25 million settlement and take corrective action to ensure it does not violate privacy when disposing of patient information, such as identifying information on pill bottle labels.

The settlement, which applies to all of CVS’ more than 6,000 retail pharmacies, follows an extensive investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule.

Read more »