Transcriber Threatens Release of Medical Records

talboito writes "David Lazarus of the San Francisco Chronicle reports on problems subcontracting sensitive data to outside firms. An unpaid Pakistani transcriber threatened to release medical records of patients at UCSF Medical Center on the internet. The article notes: 'U.S. laws maintain strict standards to protect patients' medical data. But those laws are virtually unenforceable overseas, where much of the labor-intensive transcribing of dictated medical notes to written form is being exported.' Most frightening, UCSF was unaware that its records were being sent overseas. The article traces their path backward through a chain of three different subcontractors."

Comments

Simply business

[BWJones]

This is why certain aspects of business will always cause privacy problems such as this. The goal of many businesses is not to provide the best possible service or the best possible products. Rather it is simply to make money. This is why HMO's never made sense to me and why they were a con foisted upon the American public. They have not made the practice of medicine any cheaper, rather they have simply moved profits from the physicians, nurses and technicians and moved it to a new middle layer of management who makes decisions such as exporting transcription overseas to markets with no concern for privacy.

Real Issue

[Rotten]

The problem is not overseas workers. The real issue here is sensitive information being processed by networks of subcontractors without the knowledge of the information owner.