On May 7, 2014, OCR imposed the largest HIPAA settlement to date - $4.8 million to two health care organizations-New York and Presbyterian Hospital ("NYP") and Columbia University ("CU") for failing to secure thousands of patients' electronic protected health information ("ePHI") on their network. This settlement suggests that OCR is increasing its settlement amounts and expects entities to know where their ePHI is located and how it is being accessed.

Information of 6,800 individuals, including patient status, vital signs, medications, and laboratory results, had been accessible to Google and other Internet search engines. The entities learned of the breach after receiving a complaint by an individual who found the ePHI of the individual's deceased partner, a former patient of NYP, on the Internet.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced that new preliminary data show an overall 9% decrease in hospital acquired conditions nationally during 2011 and 2012.

National reductions in adverse drug events, falls, infections, and other forms of hospital-induced harm are estimated to have prevented nearly 15,000 deaths in hospitals, avoided 560,000 patient injuries, and approximately $4 billion in health spending over the same period.