Privacy and Confidentiality of the Electronic Medical Records
I cannot help but wonder about the privacy and confidentiality of these electronic medical records that are now widely used by medics across the globe. These records can be accessed anywhere, anytime and by anyone (those who know how to). Let us face it, scholars use these records to do their research while hackers are on the loose. Do they offer any data protection policies? Do they have any in-built security features? Did the paper-based system offer better protection? Even before I could give another thought to these questions, I was presented with a electronic medical records system that can only be accessed by the authorized user’s fingerprint. Well, I guess this EMR program is even better when it comes to confidentiality and security than I first thought. Going forward, I seek to understand how the paper-based system offered any data protection, security and confidentiality considering paper files could disappear!