While the health care community has been busy caring for patients and trying to protect PHI (Protected Health Information), crooks have been busy finding new ways to get their hands on it. And as usual, technology has opened helpful new channels faster than HIPAA entities can cope.

Whether it’s from stolen laptops, rogue wi-fi hotspots, employee snooping, or determined hackers, data breaches and losses are skyrocketing. The problem is so acute, that even organizations that track data breaches are amazed at the scope of the data breach problem.

Well, it’s happened yet again. Another case of un-shredded medical records abandoned or disposed-of in the regular trash stream. This time its in Massachusetts, as the Boston Globe reported here in April 2009.