Webmasters Italia

How Technology Has Made Medical Privacy a Growing Concern

Posted on 7/16/2010 at 10:39:22 AM

With the age of technology have come some fantastic things for the world as we know it. The very way that we do things has been improved upon or at the very least changed due to the technology that has been introduced. This comes as a welcome addition to many people, but for some it may cause some real difficulties. Within the medical community, technology plays a vital role. It does however come at a price as some of the very information that most of us believe to be confident can become compromised with the technology that is supposed to protect it. So how exactly has technology made medical privacy a concern rather than a given?

Using Technology Opens You Up
The medical community has embraced the technological evolution, and that’s good in many ways. However as they use laptops to capture your office visits and lab results, this inherently opens you up to the potential for your information being stolen. When you utilize technology for everything, that means that it is all stored in files online. This also means that a hacker or anybody else that has the means by which to capture your medical information can have it at their fingertips almost immediately. This is a scary premise to many because with the simple push of a button by somebody who knows what they are doing, all of your personal information is in the hands of somebody else. That’s not what a patient wants to hear and certainly not what they want to think about.

Confidential Information Opened Up
When you think about it, your doctor has more information on you than just about anybody else. They have your blood type, your social security information, and likely your billing information. This means that if a hacker were to break into your doctor’s online files, they can learn everything that there is to know about you in moments. So while you may be only thinking about your blood work results that are out there for the taking, a hacker can get so much more than that. Though we don’t keep this information from our doctors, we most definitely open up the possibility of them learning too much with it being utilized through technology.

No Viable Control
Many medical facilities don’t have the means by which to protect your information in the manner which it is meant to be. Therefore they don’t have the methods or the resources in place to control an outside party from stealing your private information. They are in the medical field and often don’t think about protective measures until there is a problem. Therefore this leaves you in a compromised position and ensures that you now have something to worry about. Though many medical facilities are getting wiser to the problem, there is still growing concern about just how much control there really is over the information that you want to keep between you and your doctor. With heightened awareness, there is great hope that this problem will become a thing of the past.

Mary F Frederick is interested in informing people about how to get a master of health informatics.