{"id":1680,"date":"2011-11-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otava.test\/sutter-health-hipaa-breach-lessons-learned\/"},"modified":"2011-11-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T00:00:00","slug":"sutter-health-hipaa-breach-lessons-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/sutter-health-hipaa-breach-lessons-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Sutter Health HIPAA Breach: Lessons Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sutter Health HIPAA breach of 3.3 million patient demographic data from 1995 to January 2011 was recently reported – and an additional 943,000 patients from the Sutter Medical Foundation were also affected (both demographic and medical diagnosis data). Twenty-one total healthcare providers<\/a> were also affected. Sutter Health is a not-for-profit network of doctors, hospitals and care providers.<\/p>\n

A couple key points and lessons learned are noted:<\/p>\n

Encryption<\/strong>: the breach was a result of physical theft at the Sutter Medical Foundation\u2019s administrative offices. A rock used to break the window allowed a thief to make off with an unencrypted desktop computer housing a patient database of information (although the company was in the process of encrypting their data at the time of theft, starting primarily with hand-held devices). Encryption is viewed as a common and recommended best practice in cases of sensitive data storage, and is a must for HIPAA covered entities.<\/p>\n

Data Storage<\/strong>: Keeping a large amount of protected health information (PHI) unencrypted and easily accessible on a desktop computer is not considered the most secure form of data storage. As I blogged about in early August (see 2011 HIPAA Violations infographic<\/a>), HHS.gov records show the most common type of HIPAA violations<\/a> by number of instances is due to physical theft (49 percent). Cloud computing<\/a>, whether the private cloud<\/a> or the managed cloud<\/a>, can offer increased security with the use of firewalls, Intrusion Detection and Protection Systems (IDS\/IPS), access authentication and more.<\/p>\n

Patient notification<\/strong>: Although the data theft was stolen over the weekend of October 15, the patients and the public were not notified<\/a> until a month later (last Wednesday). In addition, according to ModernHealthCare.com, a Sutter Health spokeswoman is not planning to notify the 3.3 million affected patients directly, and some patients might not receive notice by mail until early next month.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the TRICARE\/SAIC HIPAA breach<\/a> affected a record 4.9 million military patients of the San Antonio area – the stolen military backup tapes were also unencrypted.<\/p>\n

HIPAA compliance is a result of a combination of technology, policies and procedures – if you\u2019re uncertain about what HIPAA hosting<\/a> for your protected health information (PHI) should entail, see our HIPAA FAQ<\/a> for more answers.<\/p>\n

Sutter Health: Stolen Computer Contained Info on 4.2 Million<\/a>
\nMedical Record Theft at Sutter Health Part of Wider Problem<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sutter Health HIPAA breach of 3.3 million patient demographic data from 1995 to January 2011 was recently reported – and an additional 943,000 patients from the Sutter Medical Foundation were also affected (both demographic and medical diagnosis data). Twenty-one total healthcare providers were also affected. Sutter Health is a not-for-profit network of doctors, hospitals and care providers. A couple key points and lessons learned are noted: Encryption: the breach was a result of physical theft at the Sutter Medical Foundation\u2019s administrative offices. A rock used to break the window allowed a thief to make off with an unencrypted desktop computer housing a patient database of information (although the company was in the process of encrypting their data at the time of theft, starting primarily with hand-held devices). Encryption is viewed as a common and recommended best practice in cases of sensitive data storage, and is a must for HIPAA covered entities. Data Storage: Keeping a large amount of protected health information (PHI) unencrypted and easily accessible on a desktop computer is not considered the most secure form of data storage. As I blogged about in early August (see 2011 HIPAA Violations infographic), HHS.gov records show the most common type…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"other_category":[],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSutter Health HIPAA Breach: Lessons Learned | OTAVA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here are the areas of learning from the Sutter Health HIPAA breach of over 3.3 million patients' data: encryption, data storage, patient notification.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/sutter-health-hipaa-breach-lessons-learned\/\" \/>\n<meta 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