We’ve posted about it earlier on this blog as well, and it’s a point worth reiterating – most data breaches are not the result of hordes of internet hackers out to get your computer system, they’re due to human errors or negligence.

Here are some recent cases of patient data that has emerged from EMRs in unexpected places:
Lost in Break-In: By now, we’ve all probably already shaken our collective heads over the Tricare data breach involving data for 4.9 million military patients. Scientific Applications International Corp. (SAIC), one of Pentagon’s principal contractors, was the outfit that was responsible for the data loss, which was stolen from a break-in into a SAIC employee’s car. The data was contained in backup tapes, and contained information such as SSN, addresses and phone numbers of patients, and personal health data.

There are several perplexing things about this story – a) the statement on Tricare’s website claiming nothing important was really lost: “The risk of harm to patients is judged to be low despite the data elements involved since retrieving the data on the tapes would require knowledge of and access to specific hardware and software and knowledge of the system and data structure” per this story.
b) SAIC’s success with HHS contracts – SAIC was awarded a lucrative $15 million contract by HHS, despite the breach.

Posted on a Homework Help forum: According to this NYT story and its follow-up, patient records (names, diagnosis codes, account numbers, admission codes) from emergency visits for a six month period at Stanford Hospital, CA, were posted online. Supposedly, a Stanford vendor sent the data to a prospective contractor as part of a testing exercise. The contractor posted it all online, on a website offering tutoring help no less, without realizing it was actual patient data. The story says Stanford had the data removed from the website, and reported the breach to federal and state authorities, as well as the patients. Stanford is arguing that none of its staff has done anything wrong, and that it severed its relationship with the contractor. To me, this is the proverbial buck being passed.

Lost in the Subway: The first NYT story mentions how the paper records of 192 patients left on a subway by an employee of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The hospital has agreed to pay a $1 million federal fine for HIPAA violations.

So to summarize some lessons learned from these data breaches:
Loss of paper records is worse than the loss of electronic records: This should be obvious to anyone who’s not a schoolgirl with a fancy diary guarded by a lock.

Your data is only as safe as your weakest link: If you’re farming out your data to vendors, then you have to know what policies your vendor has in place. If your vendor subcontracts further, then you have to keep going down the line till you are reasonably assured of data safety. When the hammer falls, it is *you* who will be coughing up the fines.

Prep with Data-handling Policies and Procedures that you and your staff religiously follow: The data was lost in very human ways – data left inside a car, posted by an untrained contractor. This just means you need to have robust, and enforced, policies in place for how patient data is handled by your employees. Maybe in your company this means that your employees can’t take work home, or that they must clear their workspaces of any patient data before they leave. Decide what makes sense in the context of your business, and maybe hire someone to enforce these rules.

Give kickbacks to HHS: If you’re in the business of contracting with the government, seriously figure out how SAIC has managed to stay in HHS’ good books. I wish I were kidding with this one.

Someone sent me an email with this link to the list of HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. One of my popular searches on EMR and HIPAA is about HIPAA lawsuits, so you can imagine the lawyers are salivating over this list.

In a quick count, I found 31 on the list that were desktop, laptop, or other computer related device. In another quick count, I counted 46 on the list (feel free to correct my counts, but the range is right). The person who emailed me suggested that most of the list was breaches of EMR. I personally don’t think that’s the case.

One thing seems pretty certain. Technology has opened the doors for larger breaches. In the paper world, it’s a little harder to lose/misplace/steal 500 or more individuals information. It happens, but it’s much easier in the digital world. Plus, there’s a lot more vagueness in technology when a breach happens.

In the digital world, it’s often a best guess about what happened during a breach. Most of the time breaches happen in the technical world, they probably didn’t give a rip about the healthcare data. However, there’s the potential that they did, so you get to report it. Enough of that tangent.

One other problem with the assertion that most of this list is from an EMR breach is that I was surprised how many insurance providers were on the list. In fact, it seems like a large portion of the breaches were insurance lists probably. Not sure that’s an EMR breach.

I think it’s also interesting to note that this list of breaches is probably far below the reality. This is just the list of reported cases. I can’t imagine how many breaches happen that go unreported.

Of course, this begs the question of whether we should be moving to electronic records at all if there’s more possibility for breaches. My answer is that of course we should. Although, it should give us real pause as we consider the security of those systems as well. Stuff happens, but we shouldn’t put the possibility of breaches make us set aside the benefits of technology.