Data Breaches Undermine EHR Adoption

The number of data breaches in the health care sector could undermine the health care industry’s efforts to promote widespread adoption of Electronic Health Record Systems (EHRs).

The latest Wall Street Journal reports that the number of people who can quickly access EHRs has raised privacy concerns, but many hospitals have been reluctant to restrict access that would create barriers to care delivery.

"The internal [hospital] mistakes and the internal carelessness seem to be more prevalent than the stranger from the outside trying to crack into your system." – Jill Dennis, Senior VP, American Health Information Management Association

In order to increase security, while balancing the needs for fast and widespread access to information, many hospitals are encrypting their computers and increasing employee education about privacy. Other hospitals may limit the kinds of information that can be accessed by employees. As more information is available to more employees, time will tell how successful these efforts have been.

Some recent medical data breaches:

• Health Gloria Tam (April 25th) – 700 affected
• University of Texas Health Science Center (April 23rd) – 2000 affected
• Boots Dental Plan (April 22nd) – 34,000 affected

Via iHealthBeat, Wall Street Journal (4/29), Attrition.org ; image: wax115 @morguefile ; Tags: hipaa, health care, data breach, data breaches, ehr, ehrs, electronic health records, security, data security