Helpful tips from the UMHS Compliance Program

Are the data, files or email you’re working with secure?

To answer that question, you need to ask yourself three key underlying questions:

1. Is the storage media or device physically secure?
2. Is the storage media or device encrypted?
3. Is your content – data, files, or email – encrypted?

If your answer to all three of these is “no,” then your data are not secure. If you can answer at least one of these with “yes,” then your data may be secure, provided that you’ve avoided any of the related pitfalls.

Let’s look at each of the three questions in more detail and apply them to some real world situations to get a better idea of how secure or insecure your data are, and what might need to be done to fully secure it.

Read more!

Otolaryngology brings free multispecialty surgical clinic to those in need

The Hope Clinic of Ypsilanti opened in 1982 to provide free medical services to low-income children and adults without medical insurance. The interdenominational Christian organization has expanded over the past 29 years to include a Medical Clinic, Dental Clinic and Social Services to area residents in need. But where do patients turn when they need specialty care?

Robbi Kupfer, M.D. (left) and Andrew Shuman, M.D. examine a patient.

The University of Michigan Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery has partnered with Hope for the past decade to offer free specialty care to its patients at the Hope Medical Clinic. Volunteers from the Health System went to the Hope Medical Center for its Saturday morning free clinics, though the setting was not ideal.

“The problem,” explains Andrew Shuman, M.D., “was that we were essentially doing a secondary triage when we went to Hope. Patients were examined and told they needed follow up care, but Hope didn’t have the necessary equipment or resources.” Read the rest of this entry »