Protecting patient privacy the new fas...(ntifiers from pathology reports. The...),Health

The new software program replaces the deleted identifying data with a symbol so the researcher knows something was taken out. To further insure confidentiality, MeDS does not indicate the nature of what was removed. "This software does something that a human could easily do but in a fraction of the time and expense. A human could 'white out' personal identifying information in 10 hefty medical records in about 6 hours. MeDS can do the same thing in under two minutes," said Dr. Friedlin.

MeDS is the first system described in peer-reviewed literature which attempts to detect and eliminate misspelled names. In addition to deleting the patient's name, Smith, for example, MeDS also is able to find and delete misspellings like Ssmith or Smithh or Smmith or even mith. While acknowledging that this sometimes leads to eliminating information that does not identify the patient ("red" being eliminated from the record of a patient whose name is "Reed"), Dr. Friedlin says he would rather accept some degree of what he calls over-scrubbing than risk release of personal data by setting the bar too low.

No system is infallible. What information might MeDS neglect to protect? Not much, according to Dr. Friedlin, although something similar to "the patient is a former president of the United States with Alzheimer disease" would not be caught.

MeDS has been tested on data from the Regenstrief Medical Record System, a large (more than 660 million distinct observations) repository of 35 years of patient data and on data from other institutions.

Regenstrief Institute medical informatics research scientists comprise one of the largest medical informatics physician brain trusts in the United States.

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