Morning Headlines 4/24/14
Fed privacy enforcers sock health org with $1.7M penalty
The HHS Office for Civil Rights hits Concentra Health Services(TX) with a $1.7 million fine over a data breach that stems from an unencrypted stolen laptop. Within the announcement, OCR states, "Our message to these organizations is simple: Encryption is your best defense against these incidents."
Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for Healthcare Organizations
ECRI publishes a list of the top 10 patient safety concerns healthcare organizations have reported, according to its database of 300,000 patient safety event reports. Topping the list is "Data integrity failures with health information technology systems."
UMass Memorial to Integrate End-Of-Life Care Directives Into EHR
UMass Memorial Health Care will partner with Luminat, an end-of-life technology solutions provider, to help doctors document each patient’s end-of-life wishes and then incorporating the document into the health system’s EHR.
Carol Harris, the GAO representative testifying, seemed comfortable estimating hundreds of millions of dollars to get the remaining 94% of…