Kat Jercich reports: In a class action filed this week, healthcare workers alleged that their Amazon Alexa-enabled devices may have recorded their conversations – including potentially protected information. Some of the plaintiffs, who include a substance abuse counselor and a healthcare customer service representative, say they work with HIPAA-protected information. Others say they have private conversations…
Category: Healthcare
Health IT Agency Mulls Sharing Patient Data With Social Services
Christopher Brown reports: Federal regulators are taking aim at the information walls between health-care providers and the social services sector as part of their effort to reduce health disparities, Micky Tripathi, the nation’s top Health IT official, said Thursday. Linking health care providers with social services organizations through health information technology will allow patients to…
Public Comments Now Available on Proposed Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy Rule
From HHS OCR: Public Comments Now Available on Proposed Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy Rule Public comments submitted in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy Rule are now available for public viewing on Regulations.gov at: https://www.regulations.gov/document/HHS-OCR-2021-0006-0001. The proposed changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rule include strengthening individuals’ rights to…
Nine out of 10 health apps harvest user data, global study shows
Soofia Tariq writes: Nine out of 10 mobile health apps collect and track user data, according to a new global study. The research published in the British Medical Journal conducted in-depth analysis of more than 20,000 mobile health apps on the Google Play Store, some of which require users to disclose sensitive health information, including step and…