Healthcare IT - as Safe as Fort Knox?

"Nowadays, anyone exchanging electronic patient data should give IT security a lot of thought", says Professor Peter Haas, a medical IT expert at Fachhochschule Dortmund. "Whenever we put IT applications into practice we should always be clear that we are not sorting paper clips but managing individuals and their future lives," he said.

The topic of security has more than one dimension. On the one hand security naturally means external protection, against unauthorized access by persons attempting to steal data. However, it is equally important to protect data within the facility in question. "The European Court is clear-cut about the direction that must be taken: it should not be possible for every hospital employee to access any data from any computer."

Many hospitals still have a long way to catch up
The industry has long been offering security applications that are able to meet this requirement. At conhIT, Europe's industry event connecting healthcare IT, visitors can find out more at the Industrial Fair in the afternoons and at the Congress in the mornings. Identity and access management will be one of the key headings. Systems which use smartcards, tokens, user IDs and passwords make it possible to scan data in a number of ways, depending on an employee's function or his position in the hierarchy.

Reacting to the decision by the European Court of Justice, data protection officers in Berlin and Hamburg launched surveys whose findings indicate that many hospitals still have a long way to catch up. They show that many facilities operate clinic information systems with inadequate access functions. In order to set out clear guidelines Germany's data protection officers set up a working group to deal with the subject. Among the speakers at the conhIT Congress, a representative of the Berlin Office for Data Protection and Freedom of Information is due to give a paper on the current situation.

Security with IT and through IT
Where healthcare IT applications are concerned a completely different dimension to the issue of security also exists. Healthcare IT solutions can also contribute to improving patient safety. "The potential that IT has to improve patient safety is still underrated. Documenting patient data electronically avoids input errors, minimizes the risk of wrong information through illegible handwriting and creates a patient file which can be accessed anywhere and anytime. Pre-defined treatment courses and digital guidelines mean that processes are standardized. They also help with diagnosing and with treatment, as do radio-controlled chips and barcode systems for identifying patients," said Matthias Meierhofer, a member of the board of the German Association of the Healthcare IT Industry (VHitG). "IT facilitates the decision-making process where medication is concerned, with check routines that draw attention to contra indications, drug interactions and dosage errors. For this reason the conhIT Congress will be devoting a special session to the topic of safe drug treatment (AMTS)."

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conhIT - connecting Healthcare IT
conhIT targets decision-makers in IT departments, management, in the medical profession, nursing, doctors, doctors' networks and medical care centres who need to find out about the latest developments in IT and healthcare, meet members of the industry and make use of opportunities for high-level advanced training. As an integrated event, over a period of three days conhIT combines an Industrial Fair, a Congress and Networking Events which are of particular interest to the industry. Launched in 2008 by the German Association of the Healthcare IT Industry (VHitG e.V.) and organized by Messe Berlin, this event recently recorded around 240 exhibitors and 3,500 visitors and has now become Europe's leading event for the healthcare IT sector.