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SECURITY
Biometrics on the rise as medical record security gets more attention
With a growing nervousness about a rise in patient identity theft and insurance fraud, hospitals are adding new layers of protection to their medical record systems, relying heavily on biometrics.
Starting last June, Sharp HealthCare in San Diego implemented palm scanning to read a patient's unique vein pattern. Sharp leadership decided on this method for its hospitals and affiliated medical groups after evaluating a variety of vendors and products.
"This system was really the most secure of all the options and the least invasive," Sheila Kantor, manager of access services at Sharp Memorial Hospital, says of the biometrie technology. "It's better than a fingerprint"
BayCare Health System in Clearwater. Fla., enrolled 441 ,000 people - roughly three-quarters of its patient pool - within a year and a half of rolling out the palm-scanning initiative in 2008. And last August, it added another safety feature - patients' photographs as part of their electronic medical records.
"Over the past several...