Doctor Raises Security Issues of High-Profile Incidents – And People

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Confidentiality is the cornerstone of the doctor-patient relationship. The key to making a speedy and accurate diagnosis is complete and total honesty from the patient. What they have to say may be a source of great embarrassment to them but may be crucial to the doctor when it comes to determining what the problem is.

Trust is therefore vital – and key to establishing that trust is the knowledge the patient has that their personal details and information are protected and remain in the private domain.

This can be a huge challenge to hospitals and health boards, as spelled out recently by John Halamka, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre – which is where the 24 victims of the Boston marathon bombings were treated.

Speaking at the Rapid7's United 2013 security summit, he revealed that his number one priority is to safeguard patient confidentiality and protect their clinical notes against both internal and external threats.

This, he said, required a significant but vital investment in both people and technology.

"Once the patient's information is all over the Boston Globe, then you have lost their trust," he stated.

The threat of terrorism

The war on terror is constantly evolving and that is because the enemy is constantly evolving, looking for new ways to strike against its enemies.

Cyber attacks have become the de facto way to strike out both for political and terrorist groups. With the latter, this has become a particularly popular way to strike against Western targets.

Hospitals house vulnerable people and so it stands to reason that they are targeted by rogue organisations. It is therefore vital that such institutions have in place robust data management and document protection solutions to safeguard sensitive information pertaining to patients, staff and the hospital itself.

Celebrity medical records – ultimate tabloid fodder

It is nigh-on impossible these days for celebrities to enjoy any form of privacy. It stands that the bigger celebrity you are, the more of a target you are for the newspapers, bloggers, keyboard trolls and, of course, a large section of the general public.

Given that medical records contain highly sensitive and private information regarding a person's physical and mental wellbeing, it is not hard to see why celebrity medical records are highly sought-after and the consequences if this information is leaked.

One only needs to look at the tragic consequences that occurred when two Australian DJs duped staff at King Edward VII Hospital in London into releasing information about Kate Middleton's wellbeing to see the wide-ranging impact such incidents can have.

However, the threat is not restricted to those outside the hospitals and health boards.

Angela Rose, from the American Health Information Management Association, explained to Modern Healthcare the dual threats that exist to the medical records of those in the public eye despite health boards improving safeguards in recent years.

"There is still human curiosity and there is still human error," she stated.

As well as world-class document and data management programmes, there are other steps that hospitals can take to reduce the risk of celebrity medical records falling prey to prying eyes and the information contained in them falling into the wrong hands.

Mark Rothstein, an attorney, said that registering celebrities under aliases is a good way of reducing the chance of confidentiality being breached.

Striking a balance

We live in the technological age and hospitals, like any other institution, need to move with the times.

Medical treatment would be a lot simpler if people simply stayed in one area and were always admitted to the same hospital when requiring treatment. The reality, however, is that people move around and can be admitted to any hospital depending on their location.

Medical records, therefore, need to be accessible to a doctor when treating a patient, so sharing documents electronically is in both the doctor's and patient's interest.

The speed at which the notes can be accessed can mean the difference between life and death, so while the move to digital notes poses a threat to patient confidentiality, the benefits of it outweigh the negatives, particularly as there are robust safety solutions available.

How Storetec is helping

One of Storetec's clients is a PCT, which in March became a more streamlined organisation with fewer staff. As a result, it decided to produce a digital corporate archive to allow the new NHS body to quickly retrieve documents.

This involved a huge amount of document scanning and uploading to Storetec's secure hosted document management system and the project is still ongoing.

Why not get in touch to see if we can help you to protect your clients' or patients' vulnerable data?

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Doctor Raises Security Issues of High-Profile Incidents – And People’. Aug 27, 2012. Storetec.