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. - See more at: http://www.storetec.net/news-blog/doctor-raises-security-issues-of-highprofile-incidents-and-people

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. "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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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?

10. Storetec News/Blogs."http://www.storetec.net/news-blog/doctor-
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Doctor Raises Security Issues of High-Profile Incidents – And
People’. Aug 27, 2012. Storetec.