Electronic Health Records Pave Way for Cyber Fraud

Over the next four years, the amount of personal health records and vital medical data available online will increase exponentially. What is pushing this? By 2015, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is requiring all healthcare facilities to being using electronic health records (EHRs). This move will usher in the era of digitalization of all patient information.

According to IDC, 77 million Americans already have an EHR, up from 14 percent in 2009. And by 2015, IDC expects that figure to rise to 60 percent, primarily due to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.

While this push to innovate will certainly have plenty of positive benefits — doctors can easily access the patient data, health providers can more easily share records, etc. — it could be opening up a pandora’s box that increases privacy violations and causes medical identity theft cases to spike. Speaking of medical identity theft, check out this BusinessWeek article about a woman who was billed $12,000 for a liposuction procedure she never had. This example, simply reinforces that medical identity theft is clearly on the rise.

Every time we experience a technological innovation, it seems that we are exposing ourselves to cyber crime. How can we balance the need for growth and innovation while keeping citizens safe at the same time? Is it actually possible? Over the next couple of months, we will be exploring this topic and how key changes that are happening right now (FCC broadband plan, health care reform, push for more electronic health records, etc.) will create more cyber security challenges. In the meantime, we welcome all thoughts, comments and feedback.