Ben Halpert / January/February 2008
Mobile Enterprise

Within the information technology field, there are many options for the creation, storage, dissemination, and security for electronic healthcare records. The concept of owner controlled or user controlled information has been around for quite sometime. While HIPAA provides requirements for healthcare and insurance organizations to abide by, such legislation does not pertain to user controlled records. How to securely implement such a process is up for debate. Whatever system or systems prevail, we can only hope that a standard electronic medical record will be adopted by the medical industry.

Microsoft has launched HealthVault to enable individuals to put their healthcare records online. Once the record is created the owner can  determine who should have access to

the record. Even if the Microsoft HealthVault system has been assessed from a risk perspective, it is often other weak links that lead to compromise. Insider attacks and other interconnected systems that may have vulnerabilities are just two examples.

Another potential system to house personal healthcare records is Facebook. Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, has mentioned Facebook pages as having such potential. We need to wait and see if Facebook indeed enters the personal medical healthcare records management business.

When discussing owner controlled electronic healthcare records, I am partial to offline alternatives. One example available today is the MedicAlert E-HealthKEY USB device. When the device is plugged into any machine except the designated user's home machine, the USB device allows access to critical medical information that medical professionals would need in cases of an emergency.

USB thumb drives have a tendency to

eventually become lost or stolen. A USB based solution should meet the following minimum requirements:

• Encrypt data with a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) validated algorithm
• Require multifactor authentication to access the data contained on the device (except for the emergency scenario)
• Securely delete all data after a previously specified number of incorrect authentication attempts are made
• Securely delete files that are accessed or copied to a machine upon removal of the USB device.

From a deletion perspective, on both the computer and USB device, a process that would defeat known information recovery techniques should be implemented.

While most individuals are good, there are nefarious individuals that would seek to discover any and all conditions a person may have and use such information as a means of exploitation or worse.

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