Computer Security

Stanford Hospital is doing a pretty remarkable and herculean task of ensuring the security of protected health information. In today's technology-driven era, so many computers and devices have restricted data on them. If I access a patient's chart from home to prepare for a case, some of that data may be unwillingly and unknowingly transferred to my computer. If I check email on my phone and receive the daily operating room schedule, I have protected health information. If any of this gets stolen, the ramifications can be absolutely devastating. So the hospital is doing the most concerted high-volume effort I've seen to update, secure, and replace everyone's computers and mobile devices. When I arrived at the security line with my laptop, the line went out the door, filled with researchers, attendings, residents, graduate students. Yet the line moved quickly as there was an army of technicians to examine our computers, update the security software, and back data up. If the computer was too old to ensure security, the hospital assists us in replacing it. Considering the number of employees that work with protected health information, the wide range of operating systems they use, the number of computers in the hospital (of varying age), this is really an ambitious, impressive, and necessary feat.