Hospitals & Medical Centers

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Community Health Systems, which operates 206 hospitals around the U.S., announced today that in a recent data breach hackers stole data on 4.5 million patients, including names, Social Security numbers, addresses, birthdays and telephone numbers. The hackers did not steal information about patients’ medical histories, clinical operations or credit cards.

According to the 2014 Healthcare Crime Survey, commissioned by the International Association of Healthcare Security and Safety Foundation (IHSSFoundation), heavy violent crimes have spiraled up from 2012 to 2013.

California Senator Alex Padilla has introduced a bill to address violence against workers at hospitals and health facilities.

Badges are constructed to meet HIPAA, privacy and civil rights concerns – visitors’ last names are not included on badges, and generic room numbers are used as destination markers instead of departments (for example, badges declaring a destination of the “infectious disease” department).

Due to a number of complex issues which often include a lack of available dedicated psychiatric department beds, a growing population of persons with behavioral disorders and a decreased availability of treatment options due to budget reductions, boarding times of psychiatric or behavioral health patients has skyrocketed in recent years.

The Internet of Things is an unavoidable part of network topology today, but the connectivity of devices – not just laptops but medical equipment, printers and surveillance cameras – leaves enterprises open for cyber attacks.

Dogs have become an integral part of many people’s lives, not just as companions, but also as guide dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, and bomb- or drug-sniffing dogs, such as the ones used last month for Super Bowl security. Police forces in major cities use police dogs to track criminals, sniff out illegal materials, search buildings, and do other jobs human police officers can’t do as well as a dog can.

Counterterrorist operatives perform drills on securing and neutralizing threats at major target areas. Although this is an extremely important concept to master, often ignored is one of the most important components in community disaster preparedness: the local area hospital.

Washington state has flunked its disaster preparedness test. According to the American College of Emergency Physicians’ State-by-State Report Card, Washington state received an overall grade of “D+” and an “F” in disaster preparedness.

Hospitals need to do a better job of encrypting patient data to address the spiraling scale of security breaches, concludes a new report from healthcare IT security company Redspin. The report also notes that healthcare organizations need to bridge the gap between the demand from doctors and nurses using their own devices in the workplace (BYOD) and enacting the necessary security measures to ensure patient information contained on those devices is protected if they are lost or stolen.