The title of the Business Insider article ( Doctors are failing to protect your privacy as a patient ) will open a lot of eyes. The article is written from a patient perspective on how her data was breached.Somewhere on the Internet there is a photo of me topless. I’m not a celebrity, and this photo was not taken by paparazzi, an ex-boyfriend, or hackers—it was taken by a medical professional. In 2015, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which was followed by a mastectomy, and then reconstructive surgery. An attendant in the doctor’s office took before and after photos of me for their records, naked from the waist up. I was told that the photos would not include my head, and would go directly to their database—though this was not comforting when the medical assistant whipped out her personal phone to snap the pictures.
Here is the author’s advice:
What can you do to keep yourself safe? My advice is to take considerable precautions when interacting with the healthcare system. Educate yourself on best practices of personal data security All of the people I worked with were terrific at their primary jobs, but I wish that everybody was required to have a reasonable amount of security training and awareness. Make it more difficult for unauthorized people to get access to my data, my DNA, and my boobies!
If you are a healthcare provider, you should probably read the whole article. Your patients will read it and there is a good chance they will ask you how you are protecting their data and information. How will you respond?