Newspaper Warns Patient Data in Hospital EMR Systems Not Secure

As Dallas-area hospitals and health systems complete installation of electronic medical record systems, there is a risk that patient data in EMRs could get into the wrong hands, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News.

Some of these hospitals are sharing patient data with drug companies and others, sometimes in exchange for discounts to help finance EMR implementation. Although purchased data is scrubbed of individual identifiers, a University of Texas computer science professor recently described a way to "de-anonymize" the files, using algorithms that re-identify people.

The EMR vendor for Tenet Healthcare has been criticized for sharing patient data with drug companies. Patient Privacy Rights, an advocacy group, also criticized a plan by three Dallas-area health systems to share their patient data, warning that shared patient records might not be secure.

But a spokesman for Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth said its EMR is secure. "It's as safe as online banking and better than having paper records sitting in some room," he said.

Read the Dallas Morning News' report on EMR data.