Doctors Jeopardizing Confidential Patient Information

While technology has proved to be a boon for the field of medical science in more ways than one, it is also proving to be a bane atleast as far as the secure maintenance of personal information and medical records of patients is concerned. With almost 90 percent of doctors carrying this vital information on unsecured, password-free disks, the issue has become a matter of grave concern.

According to a latest survey it has been found that almost nine out of every 10 doctors are carrying loads of personal information of patients regarding their names, DOBs, diseases information, symptoms, diagnosis, x-ray and treatment reports etc, on tiny memory sticks, which they do not even bother securing with passwords.

Also when a survey was conducted on 105 doctors at the London teaching hospital, it was found that 90% of them there also were carrying memory sticks. Two third of these disks, that is almost 66% of them were full of confidential patient info, but surprisingly only 5 out of the 95 disks were protected by a password.

To add shame to embarrassment, it was noted in the survey that the disks carrying such precious information were generally seen callously hanging from key chains or ID badges of these doctors, making them all the more vulnerable to being lost.

"Traditionally this would be in doctors' notebooks and loss of that would be a breach of data security but now the problem is that people have hundreds of thousands of kilobytes of patient information which gets put on these sticks and carried around," said one of the doctors who carried out the study, a surgical registrar.

With loss of records not being new in the UK, it is surprising why doctors, on whom the responsibility of confidentiality of their patient’s information lies, do not bother with the necessary precautions.

The clinicians who carried out the research said there was "no reason why this lack of security would not be mirrored in surveys across every hospital in the UK".

According to them the government needs to act fast and warn all concerned to take necessary action lest, like many other government departments the NHS too shall begin loosing vital information.

The Department of Health has already conveyed that such callous attitude concerning the handling of personal data, by carrying around unsecured records, amounts to breach of data security laws.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "Any breach of patient security is unacceptable. We have urged the HSJ to provide details of their survey to the relevant trust so they can take appropriate action to protect patient confidentiality."

A reminder has also followed suit from David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS, asking all senior NHS managers to remind the staff under them, that it was their responsibility to protect patient records.

The study, has been given to the Health Service Journal (HSJ), for publishing.

Mike Penning, the shadow health minister, said: "The Government's shocking record on data losses demonstrates for itself how vitally important it is that we maintain the security of the public's data, particularly when it is of such a sensitive clinical nature. Patients rightly expect their personal details to be protected. Unfortunately, this survey exposes the chaos inherent in Labour's approach to data security."

The government in the past can boast of many such vital data losses, related to criminals, national as well as international security issues, insurance claims and what not; yet, nothing concrete seems to be coming out of this, much to the discomfort of many, especially those whose lives get affected by such callousness.