Thieves Regularly Target Medical Data

November 20, 2011

Today in our local newspaper, there was an article taken from Associated Press in Sacramento entitled “Thieves regularly target medical data” written by Don Thompson and Marcus Wohls. This article referenced the recent theft of a computer from a major Northern California health care provider containing information on more than 4 million patients. The organization states that the computer was password protected, but the patient data was not encrypted. “Had this data been en­crypted, you and I wouldn’t be having this discussion. It would be a nonissue,” said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer education and advocacy organization based in Sacramento. Though encrypting patient information is “highly recommended” by the federal government, Verizon health care and data security expert Dr. Peter Tippett said the health care industry lags the financial and high-tech industries by 10 to 15 years when it comes to protecting personal data. “Overall the health care system needs a lot of work at being more secure,” Tippett said.


This article states that organizations within the healthcare industry have reported 364 incidents of lost or stolen information involving nearly 18 million patients in the past 2 years. 

Since federal health care data breach notification rules took effect in 2009, Health and Human Services records show that the recent Northern California incident was exceeded only when the U.S. military’s health insurance program lost backup tapes in September containing information on more than 4.9 million patients.

So, how secure is patient information in your organization???