Who Benefits? - Despite Data Breaches, Staff Cuts, Vulnerable Patients' Coverage Cuts, Transplant Program Probation, Multi-Million Dollar Executive Compensation Persists at UPMC

There are so many things wrong with US and global health care that it is easy to get lost in the details, and despair of finding solutions.  Keep in mind, however, that the intractability of many of the problems may be quite man made.  Many problems may persist because the status quo is so beneficial to some people.The Current Troubles at UPMC Consider, for example, the troubles that have recently plagued UPMC, the giant health care system in western Pennsylvania.  In the last month, the following reports have appeared.Electronic Data Breach Affected 2200 PatientsOn May 15, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported,Personal data may have been stolen from more than 2,000 UPMC patients by an employee of an outside company the hospital giant used to handle emergency room billing, the latest in a string of data thefts to hit Pittsburgh health companies.Note that this was only the most recent data breach at UPMC, UPMC was the victim of a data breach last year in which Social Security numbers and other sensitive data from all 62,000 UPMC employees were stolen when thieves hacked into an employee database at the health system.The confidentiality of patient records is a  major responsibility of health care professionals and hospitals.  Yet UPMC does not seem to be doing a good job in protecting such confidentiality.UPMC Move to Cut 182,000 "Vulnerable" Elderly Patients from it Medicare Advantage Plan Challenged in CourtThe Pittsburgh Business Times r...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: executive compensation hospital systems legal misconduct medical record confidentiality mission-hostile management UPMC Source Type: blogs