Monday, July 8, 2013

They Can Kill You With the Push Of a Button: Gaping Holes In Your Electronic Health Records




Before It's News | Popular Self-Sufficiency





They Can Kill You With the Push Of a Button: Gaping Holes In Your Electronic Health Records



It should be obvious by now that modern technology comes with widespread security issues. Some are intentional, such as the NSA spying scandal which has proven that every digital interaction in the United States can be accessed in one way or another. Others are unintentional, where computer device and software operators simply make mistakes, as in the example of the latest revelation that every version of Google’s Android operating system has been exposed to cyber thieves since 2009 (a vulnerability that has yet to be plugged).
While computer and network security issues are rampant across every manner of digital device, a breach on your android phone or the government monitoring your real-time internet chats through backdoors doesn’t pose an immediate threat to your health and safety.
But with the continued centralization of our personal records, especially our electronic health records (EHR) under new universal health care mandates, there’s a new risk to every single American, and one that leaves us physically exposed to the real threat of being killed with the push of a button.
When Scot Silverstein’s 84-year-old mother, Betty, starting mixing up her words, he worried she was having a stroke. So he rushed her to Abington Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania.
After she was admitted, Silverstein, who is a doctor, looked at his mother’s electronic health records, which are designed to make medical care safer by providing more information on patients than paper files do.






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