Take exception all you like, for the vast majority of companies involved in health care, patient information is not a priority. Nice that it is in your organization, but yours is the exception rather than the rule I assure you. Think insurance companies care about patient confidentiality? Hell, they don't even care about patients.
Security second to the pentagon? Perhaps taking a page from their book and setting up public and private networks initially would have solved these types of issues. If protecting patient data had been a priority from the get go, I'd expect this would already be in place. Instead, maintaining that confidentiality was an idea given lip service to while measures were put in place which were known to trade off security for expediency. As noble as your organization's intentions are, a thimble full of wine in a barrel of sewer water, still gets you a barrel of sewer water. That's why extremely restrictive regulations were enacted. On 2/26/03 7:19, "Chinnery, Paul" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Chris, I take exception to your comments in your second paragraph that the reality is that companies don't really care about protecting patient data. I work in a hospital and have met many people from other hospitals through seminars, meetings, etc. To say that we don't care is patently false. Patient confidentiality is a priority, second only to patient care. Our hospital has zero tolerance for PHI disclosure. A nurse blabs to someone about a patient and boom! she's fired. I know, I've seen it happen. The trouble with HIPAA is that they seem to want hospitals and healthcare organizations to be almost as secure as the Pentagon. Our administration hired a big name outfit to give their recomendations. I had to read through 23 documents from them. And some of them, the suggestions, were insane. One suggested (although it said it was optional) searching all purses and bags that patients or visitors to the hospital. I guess they're afraid someone would sneak in a floppy to be used to copy patient data. Paul Chinnery Network Administrator Mem Med Ctr -----Original Message----- From: Chris Scharff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 7:10 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: Re: Exchange server level encryption-OT Not an expert on the science behind this essay http://tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030224=easterbrook022403 <http://tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030224&s=easterbrook022403> , but the idea of needing to use nuclear power plants to product the levels of hydrogen needed for 'clean fuel cells' seems to make the "water is the only byproduct" argument a bit disingenuous. Course as I said, I'm not an expert on the subject so I'm certainly open to knowing where the levels of hydrogen needed for such a thing would come from. Perhaps instead of replacing HIPPA, those companies subject to its regulations need to rethink how and why patient data would need to leave their environment and design secure systems (which e-mail aint) to facilitate that transmittal. Course the reality is companies aren't really interested in protecting patient data, just in being compliant with the various regulatory agencies which govern them. So, following the cheapest route to compliance they encounter the reality that cheap aint easy. On 2/25/03 16:06, "Christopher Hummert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Ok I knew I shouldn't have used that example, cause I knew somewhere we were going to get into a debate about it. In addition I should have said Hydrogen Fuel Cells which is what I was thinking of when I made the statement. As far as the pollution: Fuel cells efficiently convert hydrogen fuel and oxygen from the air into electricity. Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (HFCEVs) emit only water vapor from their exhaust pipes. Demonstrations of HFCEVs have been successful and this technology is expected to displace internal combustion engines in the 21st Century. Which I got from pretty much the first thing I could google up here: http://www.hydrogencomponents.com/altfuel.html _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
