The Florida Hospitals in Volusia and Flagler counties, which composes the Florida Hospital East Florida Region, will soon all utilize new technology to reduce paperwork, improve accuracy and prevent identity theft.
In July, Florida Hospital Fish Memorial in Orange City and Florida Hospital DeLand began using a device that images veins in the hand called PatientSecure to register and identify patients. In August, this technology will launch at Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center in Daytona Beach and Florida Hospital Flagler in Palm Coast. Florida Hospital New Smyrna in New Smyrna Beach will add this new technology in May 2017.
The PatientSecure device uses infrared light to painlessly scan the palm, then links the unique biometric trait to each patient’s electronic health record.
“PatientSecure provides a safe, secure, confidential, and easy way for our patients to register for care. It not only protects privacy and improves convenience, but it also enhances record accuracy by preventing duplications,” said Rob Fulbright, CEO of the Florida Hospital East Florida Region.
The advanced technology of PatientSecure streamlines the registration process by automatically pulling up a patient’s unique medical record. In addition, PatientSecure provides added protection from medical identity theft because patients no longer need to share personal identifying information.
“This technology is good news for our patients, as it adds yet another layer of protection to their medical identities, while also reducing the amount of paperwork they need to fill out,” said Fulbright. “The palm scan creates a unique digital signature which is especially helpful for patients during return visits, as a simple scan of the palm will securely access their registration and insurance information, as well as link them to their medical record.”
In addition, if a patient without identification arrives at Florida Hospital unconscious or unable to communicate, PatientSecure can be a lifesaving tool that quickly identifies the individual, opens their electronic health record, and alerts medical professionals to crucial information, including medical history, allergies and current medications.
Don White says
This is all great. However, if Florida Hospital were sincere and genuinely serious about identity theft, they would discontinue the unwarranted (and perhaps illegal) collection and use of Social Security numbers, including the display of full numbers on paper and electronic records. I’ve had multiple cases of this on behalf of family members in the last two years, including the display of my own Social Security number on my wife’s patient record. I have attempted at least at the department head level to get them to stop doing it and to remove the numbers or at least truncate them. And all I get is a bunch of excuses and rationalization and they keep on doing it. I even brought it up recently at a Hospital hosted seminar that partially focused on electronic medical records. It was attended by over 100 with a Hospital representative present and a general lack of concern–even from attendees–was the impression I came away with. I haven’t had time to pursue the issue yet with regulatory authorities and force their hand on it. It’s on my list of things to do and I will get to it eventually through both State and Federal authorities as soon as I have the time to do so. By the way, Halifax Health is even more blatant and cavalier about the use of Social Security numbers and a Halifax Health executive told me in writing–after I complained about it at the executive level–that they need to use them and have no intention of discontinuing their use or changing anything about the display of Social Security numbers. I wish both of these providers had the sensitivity, respect, desire and better attitudes of Mayo Clinic. After encountering the same issue with the display and use of my and my wife’s Social on Mayo records, I was put off by local authorities with all the same rationalization and gobbledygook and reasons why they couldn’t change or do anything, including that it was because their financial systems included those data fields and they couldn’t eliminate Socials because a record could not be saved without one. They even refused to give me the phone number for their higher ups at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, so that I could pursue my challenge.I got the number on my own, called the Mayo Clinic executive offices in Rochester, MN, and spoke with an executive vice president. He was astounded when I told him the issue, said he had no immediate answers but couldn’t imagine why they needed to continue to have them in their system. He asked me to give him a few hours then called me back in about four hours. He told me he had called in their CFO and IT head. Both confirmed what I had told him, but after discussion, agreed that they could eliminate Socials. Mine would be gone manually within the hour; all others within 6 weeks because of the re-programming required to make a global change. It’s all about attitude and the desire to want to change…before they have a data breach or an employee steals and sells patient Socials….again. This already happened to Florida Hospital at an Altamonte Spriings location about a year and a half ago when an employee stole about 8000 (as I recall) patient Socials, I would think they would be more willing to change….before the authorities come down on them or they get litigated against for compromising patient Socials.