Privacidade de bancos de dados eletrônicos.

A existência do prontuário médico eletrônica é postulada desde o início dos anos 80, mas somente agora está se concretizando. A vantagem de acesso por outro médico, em outro local, a qualquer hora é fascinante. Porém, a possibilidade de manter a inviolabilidade do sistema é muito mais difícil do que atualmente com os prontuários de papel. Uma piada é que a letra é tão ruim, que não há quem consiga decifrar as informações presentes. Abaixo, texto do The Wall Street Journal.

Warnings Over Privacy of U.S. Health Network By ROBERT PEAR Published: February 18, 2007 WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — The Bush administration has no clear strategy to protect the privacy of patients as it promotes the use of electronic medical records throughout the nation’s health care system, federal investigators say in a new report. In the report, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said the administration had a jumble of studies and vague policy statements but no overall strategy to ensure that privacy protections would be built into computer networks linking insurers, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers. President Bush has repeatedly called for the creation of such networks, through which health care providers could share information on patients. In 2004, Mr. Bush declared that every American should have a “personal electronic medical record” within 10 years — by 2014. With computerized records, he said, “we can avoid dangerous medical mistakes, reduce costs and improve care.”