Privacy preservation and information security protection for patients’ portable electronic health records

• Published in: Computers in biology and medicine Vol. 39; no. 9; pp. 743 - 750
• Main Authors: Huang, Lu-Chou, Chu, Huei-Chung, Lien, Chung-Yueh, Hsiao, Chia-Hung, Kao, Tsair
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2009; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Computer Security - legislation & jurisprudence; Computer Security - statistics & numerical data; Computer Systems; Confidentiality - legislation & jurisprudence; Cybersecurity; De-identification; Electronic health records; Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; Hospitals; Internal Medicine; Medical records; Medical Records Systems, Computerized - legislation & jurisprudence; Medical Records Systems, Computerized - statistics & numerical data; Other; Patient Identification Systems - legislation & jurisprudence; Patient Identification Systems - statistics & numerical data; Portable electronic health record; Privacy; Security; Software Design; Taiwan; United States; United States; Taiwan; De-identification; Portable electronic health record; Privacy; Security
• ISSN: 0010-4825; 1879-0534
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2009.06.004

Abstract As patients face the possibility of copying and keeping their electronic health records (EHRs) through portable storage media, they will encounter new risks to the protection of their private information. In this study, we propose a method to preserve the privacy and security of patients’ portable medical records in portable storage media to avoid any inappropriate or unintentional disclosure. Following HIPAA guidelines, the method is designed to protect, recover and verify patient's identifiers in portable EHRs. The results of this study show that our methods are effective in ensuring both information security and privacy preservation for patients through portable storage medium.