HIPAA Medical data breaches most often caused by theft

I found this interesting article in American Medical News.  It is interesting that two thirds of the reported breaches involved theft.  What this indicates is that good policies and procedures and training could prevent a lot of the breaches.  Encryption would also have protected most of these data.  Privacy and security programs need not be expensive and difficult to maintain.  It is mostly about training staff in proper methods to protect PHI. 

Here is more from the article:

The Health Information Trust Alliance in August published an analysis of the 108 breaches that were reported to the Dept. of Health and Human Services from Sept. 23, 2009, to mid-July. The study found that the only type of breach experienced by every industry sector -- and often the biggest cause of a breach -- was theft. Health plans and physician practices were the biggest targets.

The analysis found that 68 of the 108 reported breaches were the result of theft. Of those thefts, 24 were at physician practices and involved a total of 318,478 patient records