Discussion on:

The rising risk of electronic medical records

Medical mechanics don't need all the information they ask for. DO NOT ever give them your social security number, and have it removed from their system if they have it (ask the doctor). They don't need it, not even for Medicare. If they resist, get upset and mention that six letter word they all hate: L A W Y E R !!!
Medical providers are always losing data - they always have. Carelessness, theft, etc. Now that we have computers, we can cause more problems in a shorter amount of time than ever before.

In Massachusetts the doctors are required to ask patients a litany of questions that have nothing to do with medicine. It is a state form you have to fill out.

Do you own a gun? Have you ever owned a gun? Have you ever fired a gun? Have you ever been in a gang? Do you know anyone in a gang?

...because I'm fascinated to hear Progressives have to answer for the nightmares they've long argued for.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/rethinking-healthcare/technology-and-the-power-to-say-no-is-real-health-reform/920

Now, to be fair, this issue isn't all that simple. And I am not against information being digital. I'd like it if my doctor could electronically transmit my information to me, or people I designate. What offends me is it being sold for other people's profit.

My solution is for federal law dictating that such personal information be the sole property of the individual. It would only be up to the individual to determine if it could be transferred or sold to a 3rd party. Anyone stealing information or selling personal would be violating federal copyright law.

As for ID theft, it was a big problem even before records went digital. Doctors offices, hospitals, etc are filled with people, largely transient, with complete access to your personal data.

There must be a "BALANCING ACT" between the benefits of Sharing Patients' electronic Health Records and the Concern of Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security.

On going Efforts by Organization such as "Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise" (IHE) to make Global Health Records Networks (GHRN), like the Global Financial Services Networks. GHRN holds tremendous benefits for Nations such as, improved Healthcare Outcomes, Healthcare Costs reduced, that can help Nations such as USA, Maintain a Sustainable National Deficit.

We must therefore work very hard to Deployed current and future Technologies that will provide Secured Sharing Patients' Electronic Health Records through of Healthcare Information Exchanges.

Please See:
www.21stcenturycommunications.blogspot.com
www.NarionwideEHRinteroperability.blogspot.com

Gadema Quoquoi
President & CEO
COMPULINE INTERNATIONAL, INC.

You are looking at this from the standpoint of the technology companies that stand to benefit from this. What if you lost your job as CEO because some member of the board didn't like what they saw in your medical record, or your great-grandparents record. Remember all the panic among stockholders of Apple, Inc. when the stories of Steve Jobs and his medical issues got out? It can happen to anyone. The important question is, "What are you doing to insure that HIPAA details are not given out to people who have no patient-authorized business seeing such information?"

Let me ask you this. In your rolde as president and CEO would you be able to look at a patient's medical record? Do your employees leave copies of real medical records lying on their desks overnight (IT workers)?

In all honesty its just as easy for a criminal to break into an offsite storage of papered charts and steal information as it would to do it digitally. The big difference is the quantity of data stolen. With the advancement of technology it would be wiser to use it as it was intended e.g. reduce paper cost, storage fees, eliminate wrong patient information in another patients chart etc. The average hospital worker responsible for maintaining patient information (Medical Records)is the bottom of the bottom in comparison to the CEOs, Doctors and Nurses and yet is one of the most important personnel to a hospital to ensure that the correct information is in place with all others like it in regards to each patients visit history. The legalities of who can access records and why and for what reason needs addressing I'm sure but computing technology is not going away anytime soon and its better to embrace it head on instead of waiting till the last minute to jump on the bang wagon of EMR conversion.

George Zimmerman had his medical records released by major media.

The government needs to specify a format for EHR and require that it be used by all medical providers/insurers nationwide. (The VA probably already has a good handle on this.)

As for the medical data itself, it should be the property of the patient, stored on a thumbdrive carried by same. If treatment requires that data be shared with another physician, only the required data should be shared, and only after the patient is advised and signs a one-time authorization. All data should be encrypted. Data required for epidemiological analysis should be stripped of potential personally identifiable information until all that remains is "male, 65, 67", 238 pounds, non-smoker" or whatever else is required.

Yes, it will cost money, but the need for privacy of medical records justifies the expense.

That's how we ended up with this mess....federal mandate.... and it won't be that long before "someone" will decide you've used too much salt, had too much soda, etc... Oh wait! They're already trying that in New York City...

Privacy violation is inherent in the ways medical information is made digital. It's not some far off, low-probability "risk".

That some organizations keep their patient's medical records on public cloud's like Google and Dropbox? After reading the terms of service of these companies, HIPAA people should go after the companies that jeopardize the patients' data this way.

I have always feared something would happen where I was totally replaced, virtually, since watching the movie, "The Net". People may shrug it off as just a movie, but movies come from human minds, and if one can think of it, someone else is sure to follow through with it. No one is safe from cyber thieves and to think they can just buy a program to protect themselves, they are delusional. As much as we'd like to think we are in control because we know how to use the internet, we are opening ourselves to so much trouble from would-be assassins, the government, anyone who wants to mess with someone's mind or control a person. It isn't paranoia, it's reality.

Its a shame the greed of the culture we live in finds a way to make money off something like this.

The idea of the EMR was patient safety, elimination of tests and procedures they already had , elimination of double billing, faster services and so on.

Folks have lost respect for their fello man.

This article seems to me to be a bit of a beatup. Surely its no harder to secure medical records than financial records. I know that we have had some financial record mishaps, but its pretty rare. I don't know anyone who has ever been affected. Lets just have the same standards for health as for finance, and keep on trying to make both more secure.

Just think of three different classes of data. Medical data covered by HIPAA and HITECH, credit data covered by the F.A.C.T. Act and criminal data covered by CJIS. Despite the need for some people to be able to access this data, thiese laws should be protecting the public. However, "sharing" issues have made it a mockery. We should be notified if ANY of our data is kept accessible through the Internet (such as on public cloud services. Could you sleep at night knowing almost all of your creit card numbers, security codes, experation dates and name-on-the-card are kept somewhere when any employee (U.S. or otherwise) can view the data? It's the same with medical data and with criminal data (arrest records even without a conviction?).

Every privacy law, both state and federal, establishes stiff penalties for private citizens and companies that fail to protect their customers personal data. The fines are huge and people can go to jail for negligence that contributed to allowing the data theft to occur. But all of these laws contain a common loophole.

All levels of government are exempt from privacy laws. So when your private medical data is stolen from the county hospital, HIPA nor any of the other privacy laws on the books not will allow for the negligent parties to be punished regardless of how blatantly negligent their actions were.

Just wait for the next big power-grid outage, whether caused by accident, terrorist activity or just plain ol' natural causes like sunspots or whatever. Same for some major outage of the internet.

If I was unconscious or disabled and my primary care physician wasn't available, I'd sure wish that someone still had my dog-eared, dusty medical file sitting on a shelf at the doctor's office or the hospital I've been to on occcasion.

I never thought of it that way before, but I'm glad I carry a card in my wallet that lists my medications and medical issues.

Quick to adopt and implement new software without weighing in the privacy risks? How to allow everyone to access your medical records to ruin you. Neat. The article talks of breach to the retained records and says no one knows if the data was copied. In other words the breached data could be known to have copied and the news may have been suppressed by vested interests.

I have to agree with the top rated comment with the above captioned subject. The health care providers go by the name on the Insurance Card anyways, so if they rely on that information; the insurance card, then, the social security name and card number is redundant. California has passed a law that protects the social security number from giving out. And yet they (the healthcare provider) want to squeeze every bit of information from you because they know in most cases resistance is futile for the patients. Let them know your rights when you resist. Do not become a part of one of the "most victimized" patient. Caveat: Don't give in, don't give out.

I agree with all these top rated comments.Medical mechanics don't need all the information that we ask for,they are always care less.Now we have variety of technologies and we can solve all the problem in short time period.
Usl&h

http://www.marineworkcomp.com/