Americans trust their doctors to keep their medical information confidential, but they do not trust electronic health records (EHRs) to keep this information secure, according to a report issued today by CDW Healthcare.
CDW's "EHR and IT Security Report" summarizes the results of a survey conducted in January 2011 of 1,000 individuals whose gender and age distribution matched the overall population demographics of the U.S. All had been to a physician's office and either a hospital or outpatient facility within the past 18 months.
The objective of the survey was to identify what patients considered to be their personal information, whom they trusted to view and manage this information, and how patients think EHRs will affect the privacy and security of the information.
Almost all respondents (90%) stated that personal and financial information was most important to keep private, followed by health information (63%). Almost 90% maintained a high level of trust in healthcare providers to protect their health information, as compared to their employers, health insurance companies, or the federal government.
More than 80% felt that their doctors' offices would only use personal, financial, and health information in the best interests of the patients. However, almost half (49%) felt that conversion to electronic record keeping would negatively affect the privacy of this information. By comparison, 27% of the respondents stated that EHR adoption would have positive effects, and the remainder did not think that there would be any impact whatsoever.
When asked who was primarily responsible for maintaining the privacy and security of their information, 84% selected their physicians' offices. Only 6% selected a hospital or health network, even though the EHR of physicians' offices may be hosted by an enterprise network.
Respondents were most concerned about having personal health information accessible for anyone to access on the Internet (35%), followed by criminal use of this information (22%). Their concerns may be justified, according to the report. In a national survey of 200 representative physician practices conducted by CDW Healthcare in 2010, 30% reported that they did not use basic antivirus software, and 34% did not use network firewalls.
