Paper records are prone to being misplaced or misused. Furthermore, they are often fragile and easily damaged -- for instance, millions of irreplaceable patient records were lost or damaged during Hurricane Katrina. In many ways, the shift to electronic health information helps ensures that your complete medical record cannot be lost or damaged.
Exchanging this data can be done in a highly protected, secure way. Organizations participating in CRISP are party to HIPAA, the U.S. Government's strict legal framework for protecting patients' health information from misuse. Furthermore, advancements in technology have made the exchange of sensitive data a safe, everyday reality -- consider, for a moment, how regularly your financial information is transferred electronically among banks and via online banking.
Worry 1: Privacy
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Response |
Others view a health record because they’re nosey, not because they care for patients.
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Only employees of CRISP participants, such as hospitals and physician's practices, who have completed CRISP's rigorous authorization process and who have a clinical need to view your data will have access to it. |
Worry 2: Security
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Response |
Hackers get into the system and misuse information.
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The system will use state-of-the-art protections to keep hackers out and keep information secure. The system is tested often to assure that it stays secure.
Nonetheless, whether a patient's physicians are using electronic or paper records, there are a number of steps patients can take to manage the risk of medical identity theft. Those steps include:
- Regularly monitoring one's credit report
- Carefully reviewing each explanation of benefits received from one's health insurance company
- Reporting the loss or theft of health insurance or clinical information to the police
- Actively maintaining copies of medical information either via a personal health record (PHR) or by requesting hard copies
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| Worry 3: Wrong Use |
Response |
| An employer or insurer uses medical information from CRISP to deny you a job or insurance coverage. |
Employers will not be able to access information via CRISP. Every use of CRISP will be constrained by end user roles and the rights associated with those roles, so an insurer could not use information from CRISP to deny coverage.
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| Worry 4: Computer Failure |
Response |
| Computers fail and the system crashes. |
Computer systems are ‘backed up'. This means if one system fails, another secure system still has your records. |
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(Adapted from HealthInfoNet, Maine's health information exchange, and expanded)
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