Dear Data-Diligent Reader,

Our November  2010 HIPAA-HITECH eNewsletter has been published.

We continue to feature HIPAA Security Rule and HITECH Act data security updates, including the link to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ “Wall of Shame” – its Data Breach Notification web page.

Attend our Upcoming Complimentary Live Webinars on:

• Are Your Business Associate Agreements HITECH Ready?
• How To Conduct a HIPAA Security Risk Analysis
• How to Revitalize Your HIPAA-HITECH Compliance Program 

Please enjoy our analysis and links to industry articles and white papers that we’ve researched and assembled for you. I’m confident you’ll find a nugget or two among them!

We would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below!

Tags: data protection enewsletter, data protection services, data protection services firm, data security, HIPAA, HIPAA Security Rule, HIPAA-HITECH, HITECH, online data backup and recovery, The HITECH Act
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Bob Chaput wrote this blog. Bob is president of Data Mountain LLC, a data security, disaster recovery and data protection services firm. Data Mountain specializes in helping Covered Entities and Business Associates assure they are compliant with the Contingency Plan Standard of the HIPAA Security Law and The HITECH Act.

Dear Diligent Data Readers,

A friend recently told me that the Health and Human Services Data Breach Notification web site has moved and has been improved.  I've been so darn busy, I missed it and for some reason Kathleen Sebilius didn't give me a ring to let me know — what's up with that!?  In the past, I had dubbed it the 'Wall of Shame".

Here's what's new:

1. The new location is: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/administrative/breachnotificationrule/breachtool.html
2. The web site is dynamic and fun!  One can download the contents in CSV or XML format.  One can sort and filter on all the fields.
3. The obscure protection that doctors once enjoyed by being listed as "Private Practice" is now gone — lots of doctors names now appear.

Take a gander!  As of this writing, 166 Covered Entities have breached the Protected Health Information (PHI) of ~4.9 million fellow Americans — according to wikipedia, based on 2000 census data, that's the equivalent of breaching the PHI of the combined populations of Chicago and Houston!  Way to go CEs.  And, don't forget the "fox in the hen house" phenom given the current "harm threshold" in the current interim rule.

If you're trying to figure out where you stand on your HIPAA HITECH regulatory compliance journey or need help getting there, please keep us in mind.

Enjoy!

Tags: data breaches, HIPAA, hipaa hitech regulatory compliance, HITECH
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Bob Chaput wrote this blog. Bob is president of Data Mountain LLC, a data security, disaster recovery and data protection services firm. Data Mountain specializes in helping Covered Entities and Business Associates assure they are compliant with the Contingency Plan Standard of the HIPAA Security Law and The HITECH Act.