Lack of timely action risks security and costs money The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR), has announced a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) civil money penalty against Children’s Medical Center of Dallas (Children’s) based on its impermissible disclosure of unsecured electronic protected health information (ePHI) and non-compliance over many years with multiple standards of the HIPAA Security Rule. OCR issued a Notice of Proposed Determination in accordance with 45 CFR 160.420, which included instruction for how Children’s could file a request for a hearing. Children’s did not request a hearing. Accordingly, OCR issued a Notice of Final Determination and Children's paid the full civil money penalty of $3.2 million. Children’s is a pediatric hospital in Dallas, Texas, and is part of Children’s Health, the seventh largest pediatric health care provider in the nation. On January 18, 2010, Children’s filed a breach report with OCR indicating the loss of an unencrypted, non-password protected BlackBerry device at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on November 19, 2009. The device contained the ePHI of
