Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

 

Brigham and Women's Hospital, 60 Medical Records, Fax Errors

For the past six months, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has been accidentally faxing the confidential medical records of women who’d recently given birth to a Boston investment bank, regardless of the bank’s repeated attempts to stop them, the Boston Herald reports. (via CSO Online.)

(and)

The records, called inpatient admission sheets, contain a plethora of sensitive data, including the women’s Social Security numbers, birth dates, home addresses, hospital room numbers, health insurance data, blood types, religion and occupations, the names of their doctors and hospital discharge data.

I’ll add on a personal note that I got my working start at the Brigham & Women’s, and there was quite a bit of care about medical privacy. My boss, Ron Kikinis, encouraged me to spend time and energy on security issues, paid for training, and generally encouraged me to learn about and implement security for the Surgical Planning Lab.