EOC week 4 snowden

I don’t believe that our information that has gone digital should be public information.  This breach in confidentiality is an absolute violation to legal contracts signed every day in health offices around the United States.   “The Office for Civil Rights enforces the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information; the HIPAA Security Rule, which sets national standards for the security of electronic protected health information; the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule, which requires covered entities and business associates to provide notification following a breach of unsecured protected health information; and the confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Rule, which protect identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety.” (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services).  I have worked in many dental offices, including Kaiser Permanente, which is a huge HMO which has digital information on peoples HIV and AIDS status which is not considered public knowledge or even anyone’s knowledge, it is considered highly classified and confidential. 

If these leaks are made public then everyone in let’s say Kaiser should or shouldn’t be fired on the spot because there contracts on HIPPA state, “if Notification of the federal government if there is an incident involving Medicare member/patients; l Notification of individual member/patients whose PHI was illegally accessed, used or disclosed; and l The individual workforce member(s) responsible for the incident may be subject to corrective action, up to and including termination.” http://kpnet.kp.org/national/compliance/program/privacy_security.html (1 of 4)11/29/2007 3:27:48 PM.   Also with this breach of privileged information being leaked means that not only the privacy contracts signed has been violated, but also the thousands of dollars that have been placed to protect the privacy, print the contracts, supplied the training for employees and paid the lawyers for confidentiality cases in health care have been completely wasted and violated.  http://kpnet.kp.org/national/compliance/program/privacy_security.html