At 4:33 pm +1000 11/7/06, David Guest wrote:
[...]
So we ensure privacy at the cost of worse health care. It's a pyrrhic
victory.
David
I agree.
The privacy risk is a non-issue if patients agree to accept the risk
in the interests of quality care.
Medicolegally, I suspect one is more likely to come unstuck by not
having ready access to information sent sooner in plain text than by
breach of privacy receiving an unencrypted email. (Especially since
one will never ever get sued for receipt of correctly delivered
unencrypted email - all the risk falls to the sender.)
My response to specialists who send me unencrypted mail is to advise
them to seek permission from the patient to do so and advising them
how they might learn about encryption.
Of course we will be working to "raise the bar" while not cutting our
own noses off.
Ian.
--
Dr Ian R Cheong, BMedSc, FRACGP, GradDipCompSc, MBA(Exec)
Health Informatics Consultant, Brisbane, Australia
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(for urgent matters, please send a copy to my practice email as well:
[EMAIL PROTECTED])
PRIVACY NOTE
I am happy for others to forward on email sent by me to public email lists.
Please ask my permission first if you wish to forward private email
to other parties.
_______________________________________________
Gpcg_talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
