News Compliance
OCR Reorganizes Breach Data; Reports 21M Medical Records Exposed Since 2009
Revamped HITECH breach data shows six breaches involving more than a million records
The U.S. Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has revamped its health information security breach data and now is reporting that more than 21 million medical records hae been exposed during the past three years.
The OCR, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, collects breach data under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, an extension of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects the privacy of patient medical records.
More Security Insights
White Papers
- Information Protection: The Impact Of Big Data
- Cloud-based data backup: A buyer's guide - How to choose a third-party provider for development, management of your data backup solution
Reports
- Informed CIO: SDN and Server Virtualization on a Collision Course
- InformationWeek 2013 IT Spending Priorities Survey
Webcasts
- The Untapped Potential of Mobile Apps for Commercial Customers
- Using InfoSphere Information Server to Integrate and Manage Big Data
The OCR's revised report of HITECH data breaches involving 500 or more individuals offers details on all of the breaches reported to it since September 2009. In total, the report shows 477 breaches of 500 patients or more, affecting 20,970,222 medical records.
The OCR said it has also received about 55,000 breach reports involving less than 500 records during this time period, bringing the total lost data to more than 21 million records.
Theft accounted for 54 percent of the breaches. Twenty percent were unauthorized access or disclosure, 11 percent were lost records and devices, 6 percent were hacking, 5 percent were improper disposal of records, and the remaining 4 percent were other/unknown.
The data contains information on six breaches that each involved the compromise of more than a million records. The largest breach was TRICARE Management Activity, the Department of Defense's health care program, which reported the loss of 4.9 million records when it lost several backup tapes.
Have a comment on this story? Please click "Add a Comment" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.
Related Reading
Dark Reading Discussions
Start the Discussion
 |
To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy. |
