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News of the Day ... In Perspective08/7/2006Georgetown University Hospital suspends e-prescribing After a computer consultant stumbled upon an on-line cache of data belonging to thousands of patients, Georgetown University Hospital suspended a trial program of electronic prescription writing. The leaked information included patients� names, addresses, birth dates, and Social Security numbers, but not medical data or the drugs that were prescribed. The hospital had securely transmitted the data to e-prescription provider InstantDx. But a consultant accidentally discovered the data on InstantDx�s computers while working to install medical software for a client. �The breach highlights the liabilities of sharing private medical records with third parties as the industry crawls toward electronic record keeping,� writes Kevin Poulsen. The incident also underscores the increasing exposure for security professionals. Bug-finders have recently lost jobs or faced criminal prosecution for going public with their discoveries. The breach occurred with a popular software, called Medisoft, an all-in-one medical office suite capable of handling everything from appointments to billing. It is used by 70,000 practitioners worldwide. �My home network is probably 10 times more secure,� said consultant Randall Perry, who discovered the problem (Kevin Poulsen, Wired News, Jul 25 2006). Additional information:
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