'Terrific Employee' Fired After Losing USB Drive Containing Medical Records

A Maine-based company announced Thursday it fired an otherwise exemplary employee who dowloaded medical data onto a jump drive and then lost the device while traveling between Salt Lake City, Denver and Washington, D.C. The unidentified woman’s termination follows yesterday’s disclosure of a data...

University of Michigan Health Systems Admits Patient Data Stolen

UPDATE – Some 4,000 University of Michigan Health Systems patients had their medical data compromised last month when a vendor’s laptop containing medication log files was stolen from a vehicle. That medication management provider, Mountain View, Calif.-based Omnicell, admits it violated both its...

Thousands of Patients at Risk of ID Theft Following Genentech Breach

Thousands of patients seeking medical treatment may be at risk of identity theft following a breach of systems belonging to the biotech firm Genentech, according to a letter sent to New Hampshire’s Attorney General on behalf of the company late last month. As many as 3,500 patients may have had...

Researchers Develop Algorithm for Hiding Medical Data

A new technique allows medical records to be used for research on the genetics of disease while still protecting patients from prying eyes. The new method disguises parts of the medical history data that are not relevant to a geneticist’s particular research question using an algorithm that combs...

VA Investigating Security Breach of Veterans' Medical Data

The Veteran Affairs Department’s inspector general has launched a criminal investigation into a physician assistant’s alleged downloading of veterans’ clinical data at its Atlanta medical center. The assistant allegedly recorded two sets of patient data on to a personal laptop for research...

HealthNet Data Breach Affects 1.5 Mil Customers

Health Net Inc. announced Wednesday that it is investigating a healthcare data security breach that resulted in the loss of patient data, affecting 1.5 million customers. The healthcare provider said the lost files, a mixture of medical data, Social Security numbers and other personally...