Online health records, medical devices face IT security risks

Aug 22 2011

Meanwhile, iWatch News reports on how the health information sector seems especially fond of lobbying's "revolving door."

The Associated Press/San Francisco Chronicle: New Data Spill Shows Risk Of Online Health Records
Until recently, medical files belonging to nearly 300,000 Californians sat unsecured on the Internet for the entire world to see. There were insurance forms, Social Security numbers and doctors' notes. Among the files were summaries that spelled out, in painstaking detail, a trucker's crushed fingers, a maintenance worker's broken ribs and one man's bout with sexual dysfunction. At a time of mounting computer hacking threats, the incident offers an alarming glimpse at privacy risks as the nation moves steadily into an era in which every American's sensitive medical information will be digitized (Robertson, 8/21). 

(Minneapolis) Star Tribune: When Hacking Could Turn Deadly
Two members of Congress last week asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether medical devices employing wireless technology are safe. Many of the devices have grown sophisticated enough that health care professionals can program and control them remotely, via tiny embedded computers that transmit patients' health information. But that could also create risk. ... Three years ago, a group of academics published a study that showed implantable heart defibrillators could be hacked remotely (Moore, 8/22).

iWatch News: Top Health Information Technology Firms Prefer 'Revolving Door' Lobbyists
It has long been a tradition for executive and legislative branch officials to take their Beltway know-how and Rolodexes to the private sector. But even by Washington standards, health information technology companies seem exceptional; fully 70 percent of registered lobbyists who worked for such firms on health IT issues in the past two quarters have passed through Washington's infamous "revolving door," an iWatch News analysis reveals (Israel, 8/22).