Rhode Island Patient Finds Record Leak:Mar 12, 2007 Two thousand patients of Westerly (RI) Hospital are at risk of identity theft after their names, Social Security numbers, and medical records appeared on a public Web site, The Boston Globe reports.

VA Loses More Data On Hundreds Of Thousands Of Vets:Feb 26, 2007 VA and VA’s Office of Inspector General have learned that data files the employee was working with may have included sensitive VA-related information on approximately 535,000 individuals.

Physicians Barred From Cursive Writing For RX:Jun 21, 2006 In a move that caught physicians and pharmacists off-guard, a new Washington state law went into effect this month that requires prescriptions to be printed, typed or electronically entered in order to be filed and filled. The law bans cursive writing. By Stephen A. Frew JD.

AHRQ Seeks Input On Incident Reporting Rules:Mar 2, 2006 We are considering how to implement the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (Act), including such questions as how the Act might be applied to various organizational configurations and how best to ensure that the statute's fundamental confidentiality objectives are achieved.

Can You Charge Lawyers More For Copies Under HIPAA Than Others?:Feb 13, 2006 Lawyers in California filed a class action lawsuit against a private records copy service that charged fees in excess of the cost-based records fees specified by HIPAA regulations. The firm charged 31 cents per page and a $24 administrative fee.

Don't Get Burned By Foreign Vendors:Dec 7, 2005 You are at high risk for compliance issues, malpractice liability, and fraud when you use off-shore vendors.

Sloppy Handwriting, Sloppy Dictation Lead to Errors:Jul 11, 2005 Serious dictation errors more common than transcription errors.

Did PA Hospital Conceal Compliance Violations Or Act To Protect Privacy?:Jun 16, 2005

Computerized Order Entry May NOT Help:May 25, 2005 Summary of study that identified risks associated with computer order entry for medications. By Drs Nebeker, Hoffman, Weir, and Hurdle -- from the Archives of Internal Medicine.