Privacy concerns with Personal Health Record

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A lot of controversy exists in the area of privacy of medical related information.In recent posts across blogosphere,Microsoft Health vault has been critiqued.Although there are some important concerns raised about their privacy policy,yet Personal health records is still a nascent industry and rules are still being defined.
Some have even criticized Google’s late entry onto world of personal health record,but Google is right in taking small and careful steps before entering onto personal health record market.
Many earlier proponents of PHR had advocated that storing health records on your personal computer is a safe way to mitigate issues regarding privacy and loss of data,but this is not yet a fool proof method for saving your personal health data.

In a recent study published in Journal of Internet Medical Research,it was shown by Canadian researchers who were able to extract personal health information from used computers they purchased from second-hand vendors. The computers had not been properly stripped of their data before they were resold.Dr.Khaled El Emam, who led the study at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and the University of Ottawa said that”Some of the data we found was very startling – and very personal information,”, The data included information about mental health, addictions, drug prescriptions as well as medical correspondence.

In some cases, the original owners had kept data about their own medical conditions. But in other cases, the computers were used by health care workers – including employees and subcontractors – who may have worked at home on patient files.For the study, the researchers randomly purchased 60 used disk drives from dealers in several provinces.They were able to retrieve data from 65 per cent of them. Of these disk drives, 18 per cent contained personal medical information.

Source:Globe and Mail

This makes us think about the ideal solution for storage of health records,is it online or off line?

Earlier studies have shown that online method of storage of health records are safe and effective when compared to of line methods whether using your own personal computer or portable flash disk.
In a study published in February 2007 by Wright A and Sitting DA in Ann Intern Med showed about the pitfalls and security threat posed by Personal health records in USB based flash drive.They had studied some of the :’Leading portable Personal health record vendor products’.The authors had proposed that online method of storing health records are safe and effective as they are also less prone for viral intrusions unlike the USB flash drive based version.

These academic papers show that online method of storing personal health records are ideal methods in current technological landscapes.There is no prefect solution as yet for storing of your vital health information.But,as a short term solution online method could be proposed.

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