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Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog

We offer updates on national on regional issues such as malpractice defense, regulatory compliance, labor and employment issues and estate planning.

Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog
June 23, 2014

Happy HIPAA Monday - $800,000 Reason to Take HIPAA Seriously

Today, the HHS Press office released notice of a settlement of $800,000 with Parkview Health System, Inc. (Parkview) for potential HIPAA violations. This settlement relates to a complaint going back to September 2008, when Parkview received between 5,000-8,000 patient records from a retiring physician. Parkview received the medical records as part of the physician’s transition to retirement, while Parkview decided whether to purchase some of the physician’s practice.

Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog
June 10, 2014

PHI + Home Computers = Possible Breach

Hershey Medical Center announced that it will notify 1,801 patients of a data breach. This privacy breach arose out of an employee’s action, which involved taking data home on a removable storage device to work on a personal computer at home after hours. The employee then used his personal email to send updated data to doctors at the medical center. Because the employee worked with the data on devices and systems without the safeguards and controls of the workplace, the medical center could not rule out the possibility of unauthorized access of the information. While Hershey Medical Center did not believe an unauthorized person accessed the information, it felt it needed to notify the patients.

Long Term Care & Senior Living Blog
November 17, 2013

The Power of Metadata

In an era where long-term care facilities are increasingly implementing the use of electronic medical records, facilities need to be aware of the issues that might come into play during litigation.