Hospital Fined $250,000 For Not Reporting Data Breach

[security curmudgeon <jericho () attrition org>]

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/page-1/TEC-256217/Hospital-Fined-250000-For-Not-Reporting-Data-Breach

Hospital Fined $250,000 For Not Reporting Data Breach
Cheryl Clark, for HealthLeaders Media, September 9, 2010

Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University $250,000 
by California health officials for failing to report a patient records 
breach as of April 23, apparently linked to the theft of a hospital 
computer.

Under state law, that amount is the maximum fine allowed for failing to 
report an adverse event, according to spokesman for the California 
Department of Public Health, Ralph Montano. The penalty is assessed at the 
rate of $100 for every day of delayed reporting for each patient medical 
record that was breached, he said.

These failures to notify monetary penalties and the breach fines are 
unique in the country, according to officials for the National Academy for 
State Health Policy. So far, state health officials have issued more than 
$1.8 million in fines against 143 hospitals that failed to report an 
adverse event such as a breach of a medical record, a wrong-site surgery 
or a foreign object left inside a surgical patient.

Montano could not say how many patients' records were breached at the Palo 
Alto children's facility or for how long and could not, as of late 
Wednesday, produce the state deficiency report that had been issued on 
this breach. It is unclear how the state discovered the breach or the 
lapsed reporting of the incident.

[..]
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