Discussion 5: Digitalization of patient health information

Discussion 5: Digitalization of patient health information
Discussion 5: Digitalization of patient health information
The digitalization of patient health information is of significant benefit to the care system. Electronic health records (EHRs) create a sharable and centralized record of a patient’s entire medical history, which is critical in care delivery. Because EHRs carry large personal data amounts, they are exposed to the risk of violation of privacy. Protection of patient health information is a central responsibility of caregivers, and the federal law on medical information release regulates the management of sensitive patient health data; however, the area of population health complicates patient privacy issues. Population health involves the analysis of large groups’ health outcomes. The population health concept is becoming common in this time of big data, which is utilized to identify the association between diseases and particular environments or socioeconomic groupings.
Sharing the patient information for secondary use, like population health programs, requires anonymization of the information or a patient’s consent. However, anonymized information also faces the risk of being misused. Through data re-identification practice, the anonymous health data can be compared with the information available in public and matched with a person (Séroussi, Hollis,