CRN.com recently featured an article on a security breach that has put sensitive personal information of Kaiser Permanente’s employees at risk. Details about the breach are unclear, but at this point it looks as if potentially almost 30,000 Northern California employees are affected.

As CRN points out, this is just the latest in a set of 4 security blunders Kasier has had over the past 4 years. Most have involved patient data, exposed as a result of lost or stolen laptops, making it clear that Kasier is in serious need of security reform.

With the Obama adminstration likely to start pushing organizations hard on the electronic medical records (EMR) front, the need for better electronic security practices across the healthcare sphere is going to become very clear. Especially since in one of the big innovation fronts, the area of PHRs, HIPPA doesn’t apply, meaning regulation is sparse. While Microsoft and Google are slugging it out for market share here, someone needs to be watching to make sure patient privacy and data integrity get adequate protection.

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