The virtues of EMRs (electronic medical records) are obvious—-a current record available to all care-givers, which helps improve quality and patient safety.  There is no question that EMRs have the potential to do that.

However, as has often been pointed out, the EMR is not magic. EMRs are only as good as the humans entering the information.

The downside is whether or not patient privacy is at risk or is, in fact, breached.

As this item from The New York Times column, Patient Money, shows, medical identity theft is on the rise.

Why?

Electronic medical records used without a serious safeguards is contributing to the rise of medical identity theft.

Instead of using your information to, say, buy clothing or a car, these thieves use it to buy surgery.

Read it so that you can take steps to protect your record from theft—-and you will need to talk to your doctor about what protection is in place in the practice to keep records safe.

New York Times

….“The last time federal data on the crime was collected, for a 2007 report, more than 250,000 Americans a year were victims of medical identity theft. That number has almost certainly increased since then, because of the increased use of electronic medical records systems built without extensive safeguards, said Pam Dixon, executive director of the nonprofit World Privacy Forum and author of a report on medical identity theft. (Emphasis added)

“And uncountable, Ms. Dixon said, are the people who do not yet know they are victims. They may not know that their medical information has been tampered with for months or even years until, as in Mr. Sharp’s case, it shows up in collections on a credit report.

“Medical identity theft takes many guises.”

- Someone can steal insurance information and pretend to be you to get a full range of treatments. Since health insurance information is usually what is asked for, says the story, this is all too easy to do.

- The most common form of medical information is “stolen by insiders at a medical office.” This information can be sold or used for themselves, the report says.

Source: The New York Times, Patient Money, June 12, 2009