NY Times: The Health Data Conundrum, Security Issues Involved With EMRs
The opinion piece The Health Data Conundrum by Kathryn Haun and Eric J. Topol highlights the major issue with security and privacy of electronic medical records, as well as who actually owns the record and the information on it. One line in the first paragraph was pretty striking "Most of us still cannot readily look at it, but there’s been an epidemic of cybercriminals and thieves hacking and stealing this most personal information." The article then goes on to discuss various examples of hackers stealing and disrupting health records and operating systems, including one example where the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid a ransom to hackers in order to get access back to their records and operating systems.
One of the cases we studied earlier was that of Regina Holliday's case, where she was not able to have access to her husbands medical records to share with doctors, ultimately leading to his death. This could have possibly been avoided if she had access to records and was able to share that information with doctors at an earlier time. The authors discuss how we as patients don't "own" our on data, that it belongs to the health record software companies and that they don't place a high priority on cybersecurity and protecting data. Their solution: give ownership the records to the consumer, allowing them to decide who they want to share them with and how they want to utilize them.
The concerning issues raised in this piece is the lack of security and effort these EMR software companies have invested in protecting our data, as well as the fact that we don't have true access and control over our own data. As technology continues to advance and electronic medical and health records play a much larger role in medicine, it is critical that these companies work harder to protect our information and that we as patients finally receive full control over our records.
Links:
The Health Data Conundrum by Kathryn Haun and Eric J. Topol
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center Pays Hackers $17K Ransom
One of the cases we studied earlier was that of Regina Holliday's case, where she was not able to have access to her husbands medical records to share with doctors, ultimately leading to his death. This could have possibly been avoided if she had access to records and was able to share that information with doctors at an earlier time. The authors discuss how we as patients don't "own" our on data, that it belongs to the health record software companies and that they don't place a high priority on cybersecurity and protecting data. Their solution: give ownership the records to the consumer, allowing them to decide who they want to share them with and how they want to utilize them.
The concerning issues raised in this piece is the lack of security and effort these EMR software companies have invested in protecting our data, as well as the fact that we don't have true access and control over our own data. As technology continues to advance and electronic medical and health records play a much larger role in medicine, it is critical that these companies work harder to protect our information and that we as patients finally receive full control over our records.
Links:
The Health Data Conundrum by Kathryn Haun and Eric J. Topol
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center Pays Hackers $17K Ransom
Great article. I think was surprised me the most was that Dr. Eric Topol was a co-author of this opinion. The solution, as you say, is to take control of data out of the Cerners and Epics and Allscripts.
ReplyDeleteTheir business is to sell proprietary information software to health systems to create large centralized databases for such things as insurance reimbursements and patient care. Their success has relied on an old, paternalistic model in medicine in which the data is generated and owned by doctors and hospitals.
Rather, putting control in the hands of patients is a possible solution, and employing blockchain, an encrypted data platform that would give patients digital wallets containing all their medical data, continually updated, will allow patients to share their medical data at will. We need to move on from the days of health systems storing and owning all our health data. Patients should be the owners of their own medical data. It’s an entitlement and civil right that should be recognized.
Any further thoughts about what you'd like to learn from this project? I didn't see 2nd draft idea, so just checking in what you have in mind as a goal (or what you would like to learn).
ReplyDelete