Dear AuntMinnie Member,
It's a familiar and oft-repeated refrain: A laptop computer goes missing from a major healthcare system. Patient records are compromised. Hands are wrung. But ultimately, is anything done to improve the security of patient data?
Not really, according to an article we're featuring this week by staff writer Jonathan S. Batchelor in our Healthcare IT Digital Community. The story reports on a recent study that concluded that nearly half of U.S. healthcare providers have made little progress in implementing the security rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Ironically, the study found that larger healthcare organizations are having the most trouble complying with the security rule. Facilities are also having difficulty adhering to other HIPAA rules, such as the transactions and code sets (TCS) rule. Read all about it by clicking here.
Get some guidance on crafting your facility's privacy and security policies in another article we're featuring this week, which you'll find by clicking here. The story details how medical device manufacturers are striving to meet the information needs of healthcare providers regarding medical devices and systems.
Finally, read about a major new corporate acquisition in the healthcare IT market space, with McKesson of San Francisco announcing a deal to acquire informatics firm Per-Se Technologies of Alpharetta, GA. Get the details here, and for the rest of the news in healthcare IT visit the community at healthcareit.auntminnie.com.
