A Review of Security of Electronic Health Records

Abstract

The objective of this study is to answer the research question, "Are current information security technologies adequate for electronic health records (EHRs)?" In order to achieve this, the following matters have been addressed in this article: (i) What is information security in the context of EHRs? (ii) Why is information security important for EHRs? and (iii) What are the current technologies for information security available to EHRs? It is concluded that current EHR security technologies are inadequate and urgently require improvement. Further study regarding information security of EHRs is indicated.

Ontological Meta-Analysis and Synthesis of HIPAA

“…Impact on health research, public health, disease surveillance, data linkages reflecting on privacy legislations have been heavily looked at in different countries (Andersen & Storm 2013;Oderkirk et al 2013). From the results, the 'bright' spot, Public Interest use, and the 'light' spots, Individual, Health Care, and Treatment also reflected on studies of safeguards and policies and procedures on protecting data in clinical research (Susilo & Win 2007;Win 2005). Technical safeguards involve deidentification, anonymization, privacy preserving data collection, and cryptographic techniques.…”

“…Health information is also needed for public interest, research, education and other purposes. Defining the correct balance between availability and security requirements of information is a critical goal in a complex environment such as healthcare as excessive procedures to access information will impede the workflow of healthcare providers (Cheow & Win 2009;Win 2005). Maintaining maximum privacy and gaining maximum accessibility at the same time is an important aspect in healthcare industry (Win 2005).…”

“…Defining the correct balance between availability and security requirements of information is a critical goal in a complex environment such as healthcare as excessive procedures to access information will impede the workflow of healthcare providers (Cheow & Win 2009;Win 2005). Maintaining maximum privacy and gaining maximum accessibility at the same time is an important aspect in healthcare industry (Win 2005). Legislations have been developed to protect health information privacy in different countries to ensure health information security, patient privacy, and maintaining accessibility.…”

Privacy practices in collaborative environments

“…This included disabling the automatic timeout mechanisms to avoid repeatedly logging into the system, becoming locked out of the system because of forgetting one's password, and sharing passwords. Currently, the most common form of system access control in hospitals is the use of unique usernames and confidential passwords [3,28,50]. However, this method of access control can lead to concerns about users forgetting passwords or sharing passwords with others, and concerns about hackers using software to determine user passwords and gain unauthorized access to the system [28].…”

Current status, challenges and needs for Pilgrim Health Record Management sharing network, the case of Malaysia

“…EHRs involve different health information management activities for different purposes and information security is important for all these functionalities. There are continuing discussions and developments in the area of consent mechanisms to ensure information security of patients [10]. The requirements of consent for use of health information should not impede medical research and disease surveillance.…”