Editorial
Welcome to the first homepage edition of i2P for 2012.
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Volume 2012 Number 1
Health Politics
Neil Johnston: Friends of Science in Medicine
Peter Sayers: Confessions of a Frustrated Pharmacist
James Ellerson: $75.5 million in 5CPA lying idle. Why is it so?EPublications
The Responsibilities Attached to E-Privacy
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Editing and Researching news and stories about global and local Pharmacy Issues | |
In developing electronic systems, there is no doubt that privacy becomes one of the first casualties, and the capacity to be a casualty exponentially increases with the concentration of information. I remember not that long ago receiving a reprimand for emailing an attachment containing patient information from within a public hospital environment. Human failure, rather than the system employed, was the problem, but the damage had already been done.
The system can be technically as secure as the strongest repository in the nation.
The insecurity evolves around the operators of the system.
Someone simply allowing a co-worker to sit in at the desktop when the program is opened, immediately creates risk. An insecure storage system for the system key is another risk e.g. as when a datastick may be left in place after system use, allowing access to all and sundry.
Most privacy breaches simply arise from curiosity, but as the leaks gather momentum, the potential to hurt people increases proportionately.
I was told that faxing was the only accepted form of transmission at that time.
Problem was that the previous week an HIV patient had his data faxed to his GP.
The GP had changed his Telco and surrendered his fax number, with the result that the patient data went to the local "Fish and Chip" shop.
The potential for this to occur in a multiple fashion increases with the density of data held within a system and it is almost impossible to eliminate the human factor.
Information equates to power and no system is safe for this reason.
You need to keep your data outside of any database not directly under your control and you also need to regularly examine your data held by other organisations (to eliminate malicious entries).
Nothing is perfect, but there needs to be huge deterrents to prevent unauthorised leakage from data held in trust.
Pharmacy, of course, fits into this mould, adding to the list of responsibilities that does not seem to reduce ever the stress load of pharmacists.
Insurance premiums may drastically increase because of the ease in which even the most secure system can be breached from within.
Source: IT Wire
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/26246/53/
Privacy fight shaping for eHealth
The battle lines are being drawn for the biggest privacy fight since Joe Hockey’s 2005 smartcard proposal, this time focused on Rudd Government plans for a unique citizen identifier number in the health sector.
There is nothing like a unique identifier number to heat the blood of privacy advocates everywhere: Bob Hawke found out with his Australia Card proposal; Joe Hockey got a taste through the ultimately doomed ‘Not Australia Card’ smartcard; and Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon may be about to learn just how loud the privacy lobby can get.
Roxon and her State counterparts announced plans for national consultations on the legislative framework for the “national healthcare indentifier numbers” that will underpin Australia’s eHealth system.
Health is widely acknowledged as the biggest ICT hairball in Government – at any level. The potential savings that could be delivered through an electronic health system encompassing governments, healthcare providers, patients and healthcare centres are enormous.
In opening the consultation, Nicola Roxon preferred to focus on the potential of the Individual Healthcare Identifier’s (IHI) potential for saving lives as her opening salvo.
Mismatching of patients with their records and medical results is a documented problem for the health system. There is a clear link between avoidable patient deaths and poor medical records management.
The IHI initiative goes further than Joe Hockey’s plan, which would have seen a Not Australia Card issued to every Medicare card holder – and there are surprisingly large numbers of people who do not have a Medicare card.
Under the Roxon system, every Australian resident will be issued with an IHI, with the system managed initially by Medicare and containing only information that clearly identifies the person. Today’s announcement did not broach to controversial issue of biometric identifiers.
Ms Roxon said the drafting of legislation build on the recommendations in the Australian Law Reform Commission’s report on its review of Australian privacy laws, including health privacy protections.
The Australian Privacy Foundation is sceptical, and launched its campaign against any suggestion of a unique identifier number last week, before the IHI plan was formally announced.
APF Health sub-committee chair Juanita Fernando said in a letter to the Minister last week that the indentifier is viewed with alarm. She said the Australian Government’s record of transparency in eHealth governance and decision-making had been poor for many years.
Ms Fernando said until an accepted eHealth records privacy and personal health information security framework had been established in which patient control was the central principle, any discussion about medical records was premature.
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