Two hospitals in Kentucky have been forced to notify the public of data breaches under the new HITECH legislation.  Both breaches involved the loss of unencrypted portable drives.  According to the story in Health Data Management, one flash drive contained protected health information for 24,600 individuals admitted to the hospital since 2002.

The HITECH Act is changing the way that healthcare providers think about data security.  Small devices can store massive amounts of data and should be considered high risk if they are not properly secured.

Data Security, Healthcare, Portable Storage