It can be a hassle trying to transfer your medical records from one doctor to another but Microsoft Corp. and Kaiser Permanente, a health care organization based in California that provides insurance and other services, have partnered to create what they hope will be the future filing cabinet of medical records.
Microsoft’s HealthVault is a free Web site used for storing personal health information and is intended to give consumers control over their health records. Information such as prescriptions, X-rays and lab reports can be stored in the database.
Currently, all of Kaiser’s 159,000 employees are eligible to participate in the program which, if successful, will be expanded to its 8.7 million members. The transfer will be made from My Health Manager, Kaiser’s online health records management system, to the HealthVault Web site.
Since HealthVault is considered a third-party Web site, consumers will not be protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal law that protects the privacy of medical patients.
It sounds like this Web site is just screaming to be hacked.
It practically throws the concept of patient-doctor confidentiality out the window. Without the protection of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, patients can’t be sure their personal medical records will remain private, which could cause problems.
If HealthVault became the future of health care record keeping and consumers are putting their information on this site at their own risk, they should have some sort of discretion over their medical records since the site isn’t insured.
If someone gets their hands on a Social Security number, the possibilities of what they can do by assuming a person’s identity are endless. A person can end up in credit card debt up to their ears before they realize they’ve been robbed of their identity.
If someone could hack into the system and commit identity theft, what’s to stop a person from being able to fraudulently change their insurance coverage? By committing insurance fraud, they wouldn’t have to pay a penny out of pocket to be treated.
If too many people lie about their health coverage and get away with it, hospitals and health care facilities would suffer unimaginable losses.
HealthVault might make it easier for doctors to communicate if they have a patient that travels or moves around often. But, if a patient is stationary, there might not be a need to place personal health information online when it can be easily transferred with a phone call.
On the surface, the idea of it reducing costs and improving health care through this Web site is appealing.
It possibly could lead to more effective communication between doctors. Some people might like to be in control of their health records but, in reality, the risks outweigh the benefits.
When it comes to storing important information in an online database, there are just too many possibilities for corruption.
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