Fixing a huge problem, sometimes reported in media outlets especially when large numbers of veterans might be affected, that caused much worry and problems during the previous administration and the two ongoing wars especially, but also as to us older veterans.
August 07, 2012 - Each month, Roger Baker, CIO of the Veterans Affairs Department, briefs reporters about the previous month’s electronic and paper data breaches and near misses. It used to be a lively discussion mostly about human gaffes with technology that had potentially negative consequences for sometimes a large number of innocent individuals.Over time, however, the data breach reports have become, to be honest, rather boring.
Data breaches now occur only with paper records, for example in the June report (PDF), a total of nine mis-mailed prescriptions out of 6,305,975 total packages mailed out from VA's outpatient pharmacy. Or a form for one veteran is put in an envelope and mailed to another.
A major reason for the improvement in electronic health information security is that VA has now encrypted all its laptops, save the few that are not used for information operations.
Encrypted laptops essentially become a brick when an unauthorized person tries to access them when they are lost and stolen.
“It is no longer a problem of the CIO world here,” Baker said at his Aug. 2 briefing. While there is still cost to replacing laptops and other lost or stolen mobile devices, there is benefit for VA’s reputation in not having to publicly identify that electronic protected health information is missing or may have been accessed. read more>>>
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