Slashdot Mirror
Domain: hhs.gov
Stories and comments across the archive that link to hhs.gov.
Stories · 13
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Half of US Uber Drivers Make Less Than $10 An Hour After Vehicle Expenses, Study Says (recode.net)
Echoing a similar study by the JPMorgan Chase Institute, a new study finds the median hourly pay with tip for Uber drivers in the U.S. is $14.73, which includes tips and excludes expenses like insurance, gas and car depreciation incurred while working. The study was conducted by Ridester, a publication that focuses on the ride-hail industry. Recode reports: Using Ridester's low-end estimate of $5 per hour in vehicle costs, drivers would bring in $9.73 per hour and potentially much less. That implies a driver working 40 hours per week would make an annual salary of almost $31,000 before vehicle expenses, and about $20,000 after expenses (but still before taxes). That's below the poverty threshold for a family of three. It's also a far cry from the $70,000 to $90,000 Uber once claimed its drivers made in major markets.
The study, which was conducted this summer, asked drivers for a screenshot of their Uber app's earnings page from their last full day driving. The 719 valid screenshots they used show how many hours the drivers worked and how much they were paid after Uber's cut. It doesn't factor in other costs like taxes or healthcare. And -- worth noting -- the study only represents drivers who were motivated enough to send in their data and isn't necessarily representative of the geographical distribution of Uber drivers. -
Feds Plan For 35 Agencies To Collect, Share, Use Health Records of Americans
cold fjord writes: The Weekly Standard reports, "This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the release of the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020, which details the efforts of some 35 departments and agencies of the federal government and their roles in the plan to 'advance the collection, sharing, and use of electronic health information to improve health care, individual and community health, and research.' ... Now that HHS has publicly released the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan, the agency is seeking the input from the public before implementation. The plan is subject to two-month period of public comment before finalization. The comment period runs through February 6, 2015." Among the many agencies that will be sharing records besides Health and Human Services are: Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Justice and Bureau of Prison, Department of Labor, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Personnel Management, National Institute of Standards and Technology. -
Physician Operates On Server, Costs His Hospital $4.8 Million
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Jaikumar Vijayan reports at Computerworld that a physician at Columbia University Medical Center (CU) attempted to "deactivate" a personally owned computer from a hospital network segment that contained sensitive patient health information, creating an inadvertent data leak that is going to cost the hospital $4.8 million to settle with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The error left patient status, vital signs, laboratory results, medication information, and other sensitive data on about 6,800 individuals accessible to all via the Web. The breach was discovered after the hospital received a complaint from an individual who discovered personal health information about his deceased partner on the Web. An investigation by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found that neither Columbia University nor New York Presbyterian Hospital, who operated the network jointly, had implemented adequate security protections, or undertook a risk analysis or audit to identify the location of sensitive patient health information on the joint network. "For more than three years, we have been cooperating with HHS by voluntarily providing information about the incident in question," say the hospitals. "We also have continually strengthened our safeguards to enhance our information systems and processes, and will continue to do so under the terms of the agreement with HHS." HHS has also extracted settlements from several other healthcare entities over the past two years as it beefs up the effort to crack down on HIPAA violations. In April, it reached a $2 million settlement with with Concentra Health Services and QCA Health Plan. Both organizations reported losing laptops containing unencrypted patient data." -
Iowa State AIDS Researcher Admits To Falsifying Findings
theodp writes "'With countless lives depending on their work,' writes Brett Smith, 'it seems unthinkable that AIDS researchers might falsify their work. However, that's just what Iowa State University assistant professor Dong-Pyou Han has admitted to, according to federal documents.' Han resigned from the project in October after admitting to tampering with samples to give the appearance that an experimental vaccine was causing lab animals to build up protections against HIV. According to the NIH, Han apparently spiked rabbit blood with human blood components from people whose bodies had produced antibodies to HIV. 'This positive result was striking, and it caught everybody's attention,' said the NIH. However, researchers at other institutions became suspicious after they were unsuccessful in duplicating the ISU results. The Iowa State AIDS research project had been awarded $19 million in federal grants over the past several years. Han has agreed to be banned from participating in any federally-financed research for three years." -
Former Microsoft Exec To Lead HealthCare.gov
Antipater writes "NBCNews reports that Kurt DelBene, former head of Microsoft's Office division, will take over operations of Healthcare.gov on Wednesday. DelBene will replace Jeffrey Zients, who stepped in to lead the team fixing the health insurance website when it crashed and burned on its Oct. 1 launch. Zients is set to take over next month as senior White House economic adviser from Gene Sperling.'" -
Oregon Signs Up Just 44 People For Obamacare Despite Spending $300 Million
cold fjord writes "The Washington Examiner reports, 'Oregon ... signed up just 44 people for insurance through November, despite spending more than $300 million on its state-based exchange. The state's exchange had the fewest sign-ups in the nation, according to a new report today by the Department of Health and Human Services. The weak number of sign-ups undercuts two major defenses of Obamacare from its supporters. One defense was that state-based exchanges were performing a lot better than the federal healthcare.gov website servicing 36 states. But Oregon's website problems have forced the state to rely on paper applications to sign up participants. Another defense of the Obama administration has attributed the troubled rollout of Obamacare to the obstruction of Republican governors who wanted to see the law fail as well as a lack of funding. But Oregon is a Democratic state that embraced Obamacare early and enthusiastically.'" -
ACA Health Exchange Contractors Have History of Security Failures
Lucas123 writes "Two of the contractors involved in developing online health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, which have been plagued by technical problems since launching this month, have had serious data security issues in the past. Quality Software Services developed the software for the Affordable Care Act's data services hub and oversaw development of tools to connect the hub to the databases of other federal agencies. Last June, an audit report by the Health and Human Services Inspector General found QSS failed to adhere to federal security standards (PDF) in delivering IT testing services for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Additionally, services firm Serco suffered a major security breach in 2012. Serco won a five-year $1.3 billion contract to process and verify paper applications for health insurance via the online exchanges. Serco's breach exposed sensitive data of more than 123,000 members of the Thrift Savings Plan, a $313 billion retirement plan run by the U.S. Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. The exposed data included full names, addresses, Social Security Numbers, financial account information, and bank routing information." -
DHHS Preparing 'Tech Surge' To Fix Remaining Healthcare.gov Issues
itwbennett writes "It's no secret that the healthcare.gov website has been plagued by problems since its launch 3 weeks ago. On Sunday, the Department of Health and Human Services said that it's now bringing in the big guns: 'Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the [HHS] team and help improve HealthCare.gov,' the blog post reads. 'We're also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them.' Other emergency measures being taken as part of what HHS calls a 'tech surge' include defining new test processes to prevent new problems and regularly patching bugs during off-peak hours. Still unclear is how long it will take to fix the site. As recently reported on Slashdot, that could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months." -
Patient Access To Electronic Medical Records Strengthened By New HHS Rules
dstates writes "The Department of Health and Human Services has released newly revised rules for the Health Information Privacy and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to ensure patient access to electronic copies of their electronic medical records. Several years ago, there was a great deal of excitement about personalized health information management (e.g. Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health). Unfortunately, patients found it difficult to obtain their medical records from providers in formats that could easily be imported. Personalized health records were time consuming and difficult to maintain, so these initiatives have not lived up to their expectations (e.g. Google Health has been discontinued). The new rules should address this directly and hopefully will revitalize interest in personal health information management. The new HIPAA rules also greatly strengthen patient privacy, the ability of patients to control who sees their medical information, and increases the penalties for leaking medical records information. 'Much has changed in health care since HIPAA was enacted over fifteen years ago,' said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. 'The new rule will help protect patient privacy and safeguard patients' health information in an ever expanding digital age.'" -
'Wall of Shame' Exposes 21M Medical Record Breaches
Lucas123 writes "Over the past three years, about 21 million patients have had their unencrypted medical records exposed in data security breaches that were big enough to require they be reported to the federal government. Each of the 477 breaches that were reported to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) involved 500 or more patients, which the government posts on what the industry calls 'The Wall of Shame.' About 55,000 other breach reports involving fewer than 500 records where also reported to the OCR. Among the largest breaches reported was TRICARE Management Activity, the Department of Defense's health care program, which reported 4.9 million records lost when backup tapes went missing. Another five breaches involved 1 million or more records each. Yet, only two of the organizations involved in the breaches have been fined by the federal government." -
Electronic Health Records Now In All US Military Hospitals
smitty777 writes "Information Week is reporting on the inclusion of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in all US military hospitals. This is significant in that it allows the sharing of patient information on a worldwide scale, improving care. This is leading a national trend currently motivated by HIT Meaningful Use legislation, which provides incentives for civilian physicians to adopt EHRs. Not that the adoption is without challenges. The usability of EHRs is also an ongoing concern." -
Financial Institutions Balk at MS Licensing
mmol_6453 writes "Now, not only are hospitals groaning under the combination of Microsoft and the HIPAA, but banks are having issues relating to federal privacy laws. Favorite line: 'Microsoft has told...that it plans eventually to eliminate users' ability to disable Microsoft's access to their systems.'" -
US Approves New Guidelines For Medical Privacy
iElucidate writes: "Mindwire.org is reporting on the adoption by the US Department of Health and Human Services of guidelines for privacy of personal medical records. In 1996 Congress mandated the creation of medical privacy standards by the end of 1999. Since Congress did not act, responsibility went to the Department of Health, which drafted a standard, gave a year for public comment, and finally approved it for use. The new standard requires that hospitals and HMOs keep information secure, and requires stiff penalties for the release of unauthorized information. Finally, no more employers snooping on employees psych. records. About bloody time!" The Department of Health and Human Services issued a fact sheet summarizing the new regulations.