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Serious risks to patient data exist in the development and testing of healthcare software, according to survey findings published Tuesday in a new report by the Ponemon Institute. The report calls for data masking - transforming the data so it is not available outside of its authorized environment - in order to mitigate this risk.

There are five common gaps in healthcare data security and privacy, and for many healthcare providers they could be the cause of a major security breach, according to one expert. Raj Chaudhary, partner and national leader of the Security and Privacy Practice in the Risk Consulting Business Unit at Crowe Horwath LLP, one of the largest public accounting and consulting firms in the U.S., says that even though HIPAA rules for security and privacy safeguards were extended by the HITECH Act, gaps in the security and privacy of healthcare data still exist.

Health information is one of the hottest topics online today, with 80 percent of Americans using the Internet to research areas including diseases, procedures, doctors, hospitals, drugs, test results and insurance, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet Project and California HealthCare Foundation. The Health Topic survey, authored by Susannah Fox, was conducted Aug. 9-Sept. 13, 2010. It revealed that health information is the third most popular online pursuit among all those tracked by the Pew Internet Project, following email and using a search engine.

UPMC's new Technology Development Center in Pittsburgh has awarded grants worth $550,000 to five health IT research projects at academic partner Carnegie Mellon University. The projects range from developing software for end-stage heart failure patients to improving simulation systems for cerebral aneurysms.