Risk Management

The 12-hospital Merit Health system is notifying hundreds of its current and former patients that their protected health information has been compromised after discovering an employee was involved in identity theft.

This form of identity theft is extremely costly to the victim as well the company that gets hacked.

Those who were ready before last year's postponement are expecting it to through as planned - and hope there is no further delay.

As hospitals acquire physician practices, administrators must be less "hospital centric" when it comes to setting benchmarks and reporting quality.

"Would incentives for improvement be greater if all pay-for-performance programs specifically considered improvement as part of scoring hospital performance?" authors ask.

So far wildfires have not forced any hospital evacuations, but they are ready if they have to.

Disruptive behavior is not new, but the unprecedented publicity over Cecil the Lion's death is a reminder that the reputation of a physician, nurse, administrator or an executive can become a liability overnight.

The good news is labor relations within the healthcare industry seem stable for the most part, though contentious issues such as patient safety still exist and have threatened to disrupt operations at some health centers in the United States.

Social Security numbers, dates of birth and addresses, along with medical information, were swiped by hackers in one of the largest HIPAA breaches ever reported.

Beyond potential fines are the price of making sure the hospital is in compliance and the unquantifiable cost of the loss of reputation and trust.