NHS to enforce patient ID technology
Fleur Doidge, CRN
“A new standard for NHS patient identification has been released that should expand opportunities for the auto-ID channel.
[ More ]
Identity
Digital Healthcare 2012 – where’s your ID?
d4 blog
“As we start the new year, there’s been no shortage of predictions across the tech press of themes to watch in 2012.
[ More ]
QR codes go beyond hospital marketing tool to help patients
Sara Jackson, FierceMobileHealthcare
“You’ve seen them at Starbucks, and possibly on brochures for clothing or other retail products. But you may have missed the growing momentum in healthcare for the use of “quick-response” or QR codes.
[ More ]
Public health and HIE: MPI synchronization
Noam Arzt, Government Health IT
“One of the key elements of an HIE is the Master Patient Index (MPI), which associates records from multiple sources accurately with a single patient.
[ More ]
B.C. overhauling privacy laws
Rob Shaw, TimesColonist
“The B.C. government unveiled a sweeping rewrite of the province’s privacy laws that sets the stage for what it says are cutting-edge government Internet services but what critics call an erosion of personal privacy.
[ More ]
Digital Identity for Medicare Beneficiaries
John Moehrke, Healthcare Security/Privacy
“Last week a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers introduced legislation that would bring digital identities to Medicare patients. This is fantastic news, and a logical extension of the VA and DoD use of their Common Access Card (CAC). This will bring another very large chunk of the population supporting one standard for Digital Identity.
[ More ]
Australian eHealth Record System to Allow Politicians, Celebs to Hide Behind Fake Names
Robert Charette, Risk Factor
“As I mentioned a few weeks ago, security questions have been raised about Australia’s proposed AU $466 million national electronic health record system.
[ More ]
Cloud-based identity services expand to support e-prescribing and digital signatures
Frank Irving, EHRWatch
“Verizon is adding new capabilities to its healthcare identity services, to be delivered via cloud-computing model through the company’s Terremark IT services subsidiary. The new offerings support identity standards for accessing EHRs and health information exchanges, as well as credentials for e-prescribing, including prescriptions for controlled substances.
[ More ]
Legal conference highlights EHR complexities
Jeff Rowe, Healthcare IT HITECHWatch
“Anyone who doubts the complexity of the HIT transition should talk to a lawyer.
[ More ]
On Ian Glazer’s Gartner blog post, “The Identity Portability and Accountability Act of 2011”
Ruby Raley, AxWay
“However, unified identity management is a complex problem and, the only way to really tackle this issue is to boil it down to the essential elements required for complying with the regulations.
[ More ]
A secure protocol for protecting the identity of providers when disclosing data for disease surveillance
El Emam K et al, J Am Med Inform Assoc, 18(3)
Background
Providers have been reluctant to disclose patient data for public-health purposes. Even if patient privacy is ensured, the desire to protect provider confidentiality has been an important driver of this reluctance.
Methods
Six requirements for a surveillance protocol were defined that satisfy the confidentiality needs of providers and ensure utility to public health. The authors developed a secure multi-party computation protocol using the Paillier cryptosystem to allow the disclosure of stratified case counts and denominators to meet these requirements. The authors evaluated the protocol in a simulated environment on its computation performance and ability to detect disease outbreak clusters.
[ More ]
Why Are Health Data Leaking Online? Bad Software, Study Says
Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, WSJ Blogs
“Hard-to-use software is behind the leakage of sensitive health data online, according to a study by Dartmouth researchers published in December.
Health documents with sensitive patient information can be found in “peer-to-peer” networks, which people typically use to share music files and the like.
[ More ]
Data Hemorrhages in the Health-Care Sector
Johnson ME. Financial Cryptography and Data Security, 2009
Confidential data hemorrhaging from health-care providers pose financial risks to firms and medical risks to patients. We examine the consequences of data hemorrhages including privacy violations, medical fraud, financial identity theft, and medical identity theft. We also examine the types and sources of data hemorrhages, focusing on inadvertent disclosures. Through an analysis of leaked files, we examine data hemorrhages stemming from inadvertent disclosures on internet-based file sharing networks.
[ More ]
Experts discuss approaches to controlling access to healthcare records
Molly Merrill, Healthcare IT News
“Identity management in healthcare was a hot topic at the Smart Card Alliance 9th Annual Smart Cards in Government Conference held last week in Washington. Controlling access to healthcare records, particularly when it comes to consent, was an issue recognized by experts as requiring more innovation.
[ More ]
Patient Empowerment by the Means of Citizen-managed Electronic Health Records
Falcão-Reis F, Correia ME. Medical and Care Compunetics 6, 2010
With the advent of more sophisticated and comprehensive healthcare information systems, system builders are becoming more interested in patient interaction and what he can do to help to improve his own health care. Information systems play nowadays a crucial and fundamental role in hospital work-flows, thus providing great opportunities to introduce and improve upon “patient empowerment” processes for the personalization and management of Electronic Health Records (EHRs).
[ More ]
Setting Core Standards: Privacy, Identity & Interoperability
Manning B and Benton S. Medical and Care Compunetics 6, 2010
This position paper focuses on strategic developments and underlying concepts emerging out of the standards and associated domains. It addresses the issue of personal privacy in the wider context of interoperability across an ever-growing range of e-health and social care support systems and processes.
[ More ]
Setting Core Standards: Privacy, Identity & Interoperability
Manning B, ICMCC
This position paper focuses on strategic developments and underlying concepts emerging out of the standards and associated domains. It addresses the issue of personal privacy in the wider context of interoperability across an ever-growing range of e-health and social care support systems and processes.
[ More ]
Patients have no choice – a health number ID for us all
Sue Dunlevy, Southern Courier
“You are going to get a unique 16-digit health ID number on July 1 – whether you want one or not.
This is a despite a Rudd Government promise the new “e-health” system would be on an opt-in basis.
[ More ]
Medical/Healthcare Privacy and Fraud Outlook for 2010
Eduard F. Goodman, HealthNewsDigest
“You may not be aware of this, but medical-related fraud and identity theft are growing problems in America. With the exploding cost of healthcare, increasing bureaucratic administrative healthcare systems, and a large, aging Baby Boomer population requiring increased medical care, it would seem that we are entering into a kind of “perfect storm” for medical fraud.
[ More ]
Humana says it will switch to machine-readable patient ID cards
Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News
“Humana, one of the nation’s largest health-benefits companies, has promised to adopt machine-readable patient ID cards and, in the process, won the acclaim of the Medical Group Management Association, which estimates the cards could save physician offices and hospitals as much as $1 billion a year.
[ More ]
