The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT awarded four Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) grants funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. One of the projects is being led by Professor Carl Gunter of the Department of Computer Science and the Information Trust Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His mission is to develop technology that would make EHRs and health information exchange safe and secure, and therefore help patients and providers become more comfortable with these systems.
Gunter and his colleagues are looking at two-factor authentication and authorization. One of the two-factor authentication approaches they are exploring come from the ATM model of bank card and personal identification number. One twist would be to switch the bank card with a patient's cell phone as one level of authentication and authorization.
The project has $15 million at its disposal to come up with viable approaches, and it looks like Gunter and his team will be working on some pretty innovative models.
What other ways might we make EHRs and HIEs more secure? The use of biometrics? Voice recognition? Remember that keeping things simple and avoiding burden on users are critical to adoption.
If you have an out-of-the-box approach on how to secure digital patient records and/or health information exchange, please share them here. Let's get those ideas out.
Patty Enrado blogs daily at EHRWatch.com.
