Study: patient info easily found on P2P networks
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The biggest through for hospital security is apparently employees who trade patient information on P2P networks, according to research from Dartmouth College.
During a two-week monitoring period, business professor Eric Johnson found a multitude of sensitive documents being traded on programs such as LimeWire and BearShare, SCMagazineus.com reports. One document was a spreadsheet from an AIDS clinic containing 232 client names, including their Social Security numbers, addresses and birthdates.
Another document had information on more than 20,000 patients, also including Social Security numbers and insurance records, according to the article.
Johnson told the news provider part of the problem may be health care organizations storing the sensitive data in unprotected and portable formats such as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Word documents or PDFs.
This may offer more proof that health care facilities need to be updated with electronic health records (EHR), but also that strict security guidelines need to be in place beforehand.
President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill, which calls for implementing EHRs, also has provisions for privacy controls and tight security concerning patient information.
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