It’s Your Call October 2016

OSHA:

Hepatitis C Considerations

When working with your last patient, recently diagnosis of Hepatitis C, he mentioned that he has never felt better since beginning treatment with Harvoni. What other thoughts about Hepatitis C come to mind?

Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver. According to the CDC, people can become infected with Hepatitis C during such activities as:

• Sharing needles, syringes, or other equipment to inject drugs
• Needlestick injuries in health care settings
• Being born to a mother who has Hepatitis CAn estimated 2.7 to 3.9 million people in the US live with Hep C. There are several FDA approved medications that are used to treat Hepatitis C. Patients typically take a pill once a day for 12 weeks.   Costs vary but can go as high as $1,000 per pill according to PBS. With persistence, many patients have gotten insurance approval and/or funding to take care of the expensive treatment. Untreated, Hepatitis C can lead to cirrhosis, liver disease, or liver cancer.It’s important to be sensitive to the needs of your patients and protect yourself from potential exposures in the process.

http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/hcv/cfaq.htm

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/maker-of-1000-hepatitis-c-pill-was-focused-on-profits-not-patients-report-finds/

HIPAA:

Hashing the Pass-Code

Pass-code protection is everywhere. It’s on our smartphones, alarm systems, computers and online accounts. Complex passwords and password rotation will decrease the chances of hacker access into your systems.  How does changing the password prevent hackers from gaining access again? What steps have you taken to secure your pass word?

Companies can store your passwords a number of ways. Data stored in plain text is in a human-readable form and thus not very secure. Encrypting the password adds strings of random text which make the password more secure, but persistent hackers can decrypt the added text strings. Hashing is the next, best option. It’s similar to encryption in that it uses a long string of text. However, the algorithms used to add randomized text cannot be run backwards to get the original password. It takes a lot more effort and work for hackers to discover the password.  Most security experts are considering slow hashing because it would take a very long time for hackers to discover slow hashed passwords. The key thing for employees to remember is to create strong passwords, and let the experts HASH out the rest.

http://lifehacker.com/5919918/how-your-passwords-are-stored-on-the-internet-and-when-your-password-strength-doesnt-matter