One of often voiced concerns about the storage of medical records on the internet or in “the cloud” as it were is the fear of marauding hackers stealing information in order to exploit patient data. Michael Koploy, and ERP analyst at Software Advoice, recently wrote an interesting post entitled “HSS Data Tells the True Story of HIPAA violations in the cloud.” His article can be reached at http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/medical/hipaa-violations-arent-in-the-cloud-1062011/ . He starts with the so called “Wall of Shame” at the HSS website listing the details of 281HIPAA security violations through June 9, 2011. Only seven involved EMR violations and of those only one was accessed by hacker. The most common violation was a lost or stolen computer hard drive, often taken from a car or van. Paper records were also frequently lost or stolen to negligent inattention or poor security. Perhaps there will be a shift toward more cases involving cloud storage attacks in the future, but at present the security fears about cloud computing seem overblown. Perhaps it would be appropriate to borrow some lyrics from Joni Mitchell.
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s clouds illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all.
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