In the news: "Octomom" privacy breach at Kaiser Permanente; uptick in HIT stocks; and more

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Steve Fox and Vadim Schick
  • After what has become a rather typical breach of patient privacy for Southern California, Kaiser Permanente fired fifteen employees (and disciplined eight additional employees) for looking at the medical records of Nadya Suleman, the mother of octuplets commonly referred to as "Octomom".  Previously, similar breaches occurred at UCLA when that medical center's staff leaked celebrities' medical records to the tabloids.  (MercuryNews.com, via AP, March 30, 2009.)
  • Wall Street Journal reported last week that HIT stocks, especially smaller companies, like eClinicalWorks (which provide the software component of Wal-Mart's new EHR package) will benefit greatly from the billions of dollars in HIT funding included in the stimulus bill.  Also, in another sure sign of a growing industry, Quality Systems, the maker of the NextGen EHR software, is "beefing up its sales force." ("Stimulus Funds for E-Records Augur Big Windfall for Small Health Firms", Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2009.)
  • A new bill is introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate that would ban businesses from collecting personal data from driver's licenses.  This should also serve as a good reminder for businesses not to collect or store more information than absolutely necessary.  (Pennlive.com, March 30, 2009.)
  • Perot Systems will launch a new service tomorrow (April 1, 2009) to help hospitals achieve "meaningful use" status under HITECH, geared towards meeting the interoperability and standardization of HIT use.  (Healthcare IT News, March 30, 2009).

 
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In the news

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Steve Fox and Vadim Schick
  • Kaiser Permanente and IBM inked a $500 million, seven-year IT services deal.  IBM will manage Kaiser's data center operations, storage and software, but IBM will not have access to patients' medical records.  AP, San Francisco Chronicle (March 17, 2009).
  • A new study expects that as much as three-quarters of prescribers will use e-prescribing by 2014 because of the incentives for adoption of e-prescribing technology included in the HITECH Act (though only about 15% of current prescribers use e-prescribing).  This could result in a massive $22 billion reduction in drug and medical costs.  Government Health IT (March 17, 2009).
  • Wal-Mart is bringing its "high-volume, low-cost" approach to the medical records industry.  Wal-Mart's Sam's Club division will produce a package that will include hardware from Dell, software from eClinicalWorks, as well as installation, maintenance and training services.  According to the New York Times (March 11, 2009), the "Sam’s Club offering, to be made available this spring, will be under $25,000 for the first physician in a practice, and about $10,000 for each additional doctor. After the installation and training, continuing annual costs for maintenance and support will be $4,000 to $6,500 a year, the company estimates." This development has huge implications for the EHR market, and may actually aid the widespread adoption of EHR technology.   Healthcare IT News (March 11, 2009) also covered this story.

More news after the jump.

  • Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration (HISPC) is working on an engine to help healthcare providers navigate through the complex labyrinth of interstate transfers of health information.  Government Health IT (March 5, 2009).
  • President & CEO of HIMSS Analytics, Dave Garetz, predicts a huge rush in 2009 to adopt HIT in order to qualify for government incentives as meaningful EHR users.  There will likely be a significant shortage of competent HIT personnel and "change management experts" to help in this gigantic transition effort, which further underscores this Blog's urgent plea to begin planning for EHR adoption now.  Healthcare IT News (March 4, 2009).
  • Not everything is coming up roses:  Scott Haig of Time has a thoughtful article outlining some of the major challenges for nationwide adoption of EHR technology.  Time (March 5, 2009).
  • Universities are (and have been for years) the leading sector for publicized data breaches.  A new report examines the reasons.  ComputerWorld (March 9, 2009).  (The author of the article, Jay Cline, was only able 20 chief privacy officers at major U.S. universities, which is a clear sign that the academia - as institutions subject to numerous data privacy laws, including HIPAA, GLBA and FERPA - should be much more proactive and serious about data privacy protection.)
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