Security worries hamper wireless health-care plans

That was the consensus of the audience at a panel discussion last month on overcoming challenges to wireless security at the 4th Annual Summit on Wireless and Mobile Healthcare Technology.“We at Saint Elizabeth Health Care partnered with Ontario’s Smart Systems for Health to establish secure e-mail,” said Paresh Manek, director of technology at the home health-care provider organization in Toronto. “We use the SSHA network as the basis for exchanging information securely. We got everything done, and after all the celebrations were over, six months later it’s collecting dust.”
Manek said the organization’s privacy officer shut it down, or at least confined its use to back-office applications, because it is seen as too risky to exchange patient-related information among various facilities, although from an IT perspective, it’s as airtight as it can be, he said.