Is Your Health Care Data Safe?

As Google, Microsoft, and other web services attempt to manage medical data electronically on a greater scale, Harvard Medical School doctors have stepped in to say that those records may not be accurate, current, or private. The two medical professionals-Dr. Kenneth D. Mandl and Dr. Isaac S. Kohane-felt so strongly about the trend that they jointly submitted an article to that effect to the April 17th edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The goal of coordinating and organizing medical records via internet services has been a long time in the works, as the idea of centralized data would cut down on medical office expenses and time while enabling doctors to easily access the records. Even the 2008 presidential candidates have included such goals in their respective health care initiatives. However, many doctors are expressing their concerns about the ability for the web services to take on such a monumental task without error and security.

Microsoft and Google have recently started offering web-based personal health records, though which patients allow physicians, hospital, and other health care providers to store their personal records online, though the consumers are able to specify exactly what information is stored and to whom it is available. Even so, Microsoft and Google are not bound by the privacy restrictions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which regulates medical data and patient privacy. Therein lies the concern of doctors that corporations like Microsoft and Google may not have the needs and wants of the patients at the core of their interest of getting into the $2.1 trillion U.S. health care industry.

Also, Google and Microsoft have expressed their opposition to having the federal government step in and regulate the maintenance of electronic medical records. Executives of those companies have agreed that third-party oversight might be a consideration, but they do not like the idea of being subject to HIPAA, which could turn out to be a major stumbling block as everyone tries to coordinate an electronic system that seems somewhat inevitable.

The doctors noted several specific problems with electronic medical records, the first of which being erroneous information, which can not only be entered incorrectly but then perpetuated through the electronic distribution of that wrong data to numerous sources. In addition, there is a concern that the personal communication between doctors and patients will be lessened, which will decrease the chances of critical pieces of information being discovered during face-to-face conversations.

While numerous players in the health care system would need to access a patient's records, such as doctors, hospitals, clinics, insurance companies, and pharmacies, there are federal regulations in place regarding the sharing of such information. Those regulations would need to be amended carefully. Moreover, research organizations who want to tap into that data for scientific purposes are supposedly restricted from being able to access patients' identities, so there would need to be a way to allow access to information without violating patients' privacy.

Other health care professionals have voiced different concerns, such as the lack of standard formats for medical documentation, and regulations that mandate the continuation of paper records and the confusion that will cause when matched against electronic data.

Even so, the hope that the obstacles can be overcome is shared by most in the medical field, as one system-if accurate, secure, and standardized-could be beneficial to patients and doctors. Specifically, Mandl and Kohane have been proponents of moving toward an electronic system of patient records, but their concerns about the implications of the plan without the proper due diligence were significant enough to publish.