Online Medical Information: Private & Confidential?

As the dotcom revolution sweeps the healthcare industry, more and more medical information is being stored online. Broader use of electronic technologies promises to make healthcare more efficient and effective. That's important as the nation tries to control the costs and increase the quality of healthcare.

This may allow for more efficient care, but does it also put your privacy at risk? How can you be sure your medical records and email remain confidential?

The Digital Hospital

Chronologically speaking, radiology and lab reports were the first instances of medical information to be stored digitally; the more digitized the correctness of the information, the easier it is to become digitalized.

"If you look across doctors' offices, well under 10% have any real clinical information in electronic form right now," states Daniel Z. Sands, MD, MPH of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Sands is a nationally recognized speaker and consultant in the area of clinical computing and patient and clinician empowerment through the use of computer technology.

For while the variety of Internet offerings have exploded, privacy has limped far behind. Medical privacy was a factor recently when the White House backed away from the idea of assigning every American a medical identification number.

The notion was shelved, the administration said, until Congress passes legislation to protect patient privacy. The current version of that bill has faced criticism for not going far enough.

Oath of Hippocrates: What ought not be noised abroad...or online?

As stated in the Oath of Hippocrates, "Whatsoever things I see or hear concerning the life of men, in my attendance on the sick or even apart therefrom, which ought not be noised abroad, I will keep silence thereon, counting such things to be as sacred secrets."

As sacred as it has been and continues to be, physician-patient relationships must still remain confidential as we embark on the electronic journey into the 21st Century. However, there are new restrictions on that confidentiality once it hits the Internet.

In preparing for the Internet Medical Age, we must be vigilant to strengthen the safeguards that have always protected patients and their privacy. We must insist on the sanctity of the patient doctor relationship while searching for ethical ways to leverage the power of the Net for patients.

Don't Forget to Use Protection!

If information is being stored electronically or digitally, how is it protected from hackers or investigators?

Technologies known as "fire walls" can make it very difficult for unauthorized outsiders to get into hospital computers. Encryption can also protect electronic transfers of information.

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