December 28, 2013 · by · in ,

Patient privacy and equipment manufacturers The article is regarding a particular equipment manufacturer gathering information on patients that are treated with their equipment via a modem installed on the equipment. I was reading an article in the December 2013 issue of Dermatology Times. Let me start by saying I believe what this particular manufacturer is doing is the exception and not the rule. However if a modem is connected to any of your lasers, it’s setup to transmit data, this would have me asking the following questions. - What data is being gathered? - How much data is being gathered? - Who’s getting the data? - What are they doing with the data? I would think based on patient privacy laws the physician or practice would be the only ones to monitor a patients medical services or history. If a manufacture wants to gather information on patents that have been treated with their equipment for what ever reason, should it be collected without the patients knowledge? What happenedto consent forms? This technology isn’t anything new, it’s been used in the photo copier industry for years. A modem is connected to the photo copier to monitor system functions, paper consumption, maintenance intervals and toner consumption to name a few. These are strictly system related matters, but monitoring system functions isn’t mentioned by the manufacturer in the article. If the manufacturer is truly interested in gathering information for marketing purposes only, would this marketing extent to solicitations directly to the patient without the physicians knowledge? Most new laser purchases include marketing and advertising information to help the practice launch the new equipment with the option  to purchase structured ongoing marketing and advertising campaigns. If manufacturers are able to gather this information, is this possibly opening a door where the manufactures will start to make recommendations to the physician on how to treat their patients or more? Something to beaware of in general when using equipment that has the ability to store data let alone transmit it, whether the equipment is a laser, photo copier, fax machine or  computer, when no longer using this equipment and plans to sell it, the data storage part of the equipment should be wiped clean. Especially if selling a laser on the open market and patient information is stored in the equipment. If planning on reselling a computer it’s best to remove and save or destroy the hard drive, likewise with the larger photocopiers that are resold and can sometimes end up in a different country. What ever information that is saved and stored can easily be access! The following blogs may also be of interest! >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >   

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