Michael Evans writes in the Globe and Mail: I don’t often quote George Bush, but he was right when he pointed out in a 2006 presidential discussion on health care that “doctors practice 21st-century medicine, but they still have 19th-century filing systems.” Patients often wonder, “How come the Instabank in Istanbul tells me exactly how…
Author: Dissent
Open records on mentally ill: Cops
Jeremy Walsh writes in the Times Ledger: Officers responding to deal with David Tarloff, a mentally ill Corona resident accused of murdering a Manhattan therapist, may not have had access to Tarloff’s history with police or medical history in the months leading up to the slaying, police suggested during a City Council hearing. The hearing,…
Peel: Congress should stop pandering to health data miners
In today’s Government Health IT Notebook, there is a statement by Deborah Peel, M.D., Founder and Chair of Patient Privacy Rights: The story last week on e-prescribing [“$3 billion annual savings estimated for Medicare e-prescribing,†GovHealthITcom, March 4] does not mention the elephant in the room: that every prescription in the nation has been data-mined…
Dialysis patients' SSN and health info on laptop stolen from DaVita employee's car
On March 3, dialysis services providers DVA Renal Healthcare, Inc. notified [pdf] the NH DOJ that a laptop stolen from an employee’s vehicle contained unencrypted personal information on current or former patients. Ann DesRuisseaux, DaVita’s Assistant General Counsel, did not indicate the date of the theft itself, saying only that the company “recently” discovered the…
NZ: Hospital IDs focus of privacy debate
Stephen Bell Wellington writes in Computerworld: With the renewed focus on privacy in both New Zealand and Australia, Melbourne-based health software company TrakHealth has had to defend the approach it took to a public health patient-tracking system it recently developed for Brazil. The system will provide every Brazilian with an identifying number and plastic card…
UK: NHS baby data found in store
Kevin Barnes writes in the Croydon Guardian: A sensitive document detailing the treatments of premature babies at Mayday Hospital was discovered at a supermarket in Sutton. An investigation was ordered after a shopper stumbled on the highly confidential patient records while browsing a DVD rack at Morrisons. John Dunne, 61, discovered the names, dates of…