Good reasons to keep copies of records and other data...article on security of medical records, etc.

[Guest guest]

http://www.mmt-kmi.com/3_5_art2.htm

If you are, or were in the military, your medical records might be

more secure under your mattress to keep them from unauthorized eyes.

Two years ago, members of a Defense Department (DoD) red team mounted

a " simulated attack " on DoD medical databases containing blood type

information, in which they altered service members' blood

types-virtually, that is. The exercise showed that military medical

records were even more vulnerable to hostile hackers than the

often-penetrated DoD military computer networks.

Pentagon agencies responsible for recording vaccine-related illnesses

managed to misplace all 150,000 medical records of troops vaccinated

against anthrax during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. That may make

problematic the efforts of an interagency team of medical experts,

which the Pentagon announced on Oct. 7 will coordinate long-term

studies on the safety and effectiveness of the anthrax vaccine, in

response to growing concerns about its safety.

Regarding medical data in bits and bytes, Nagel, executive

director of the National Coalition for Patient Rights, commented: " one

thing that has struck us is that when you see breaches with written

records, you can imagine the magnitude of error in a computerized

system that could easily have a million records. "

This certainly appears to be the case at the Department of Veterans

Affairs (VA) where the lack of security for millions of digitized

medical records is dismal.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) and the VA Office of Inspector

General reported on October 4, 1999 that they continue " to find

serious problems related to the [VA's] control and oversight of access

to its information systems. "

A GAO audit had determined that this breakdown in computer security

puts " sensitive information, including financial data and sensitive

veteran medical and benefit information, at increased risk of

inadvertent or deliberate misuse, fraudulent use, improper disclosure,

or destruction, possibly occurring without detection. "