This week I listened to an intriguing interview with Dr David Blumenthal. He is President Obama’s health records czar – and is tasked with setting up a nationwide health information technology infrastructure. Dr Blumenthal pointed out that in 2008, 90% of hospitals and 83% of physicians in the USA were still using paper-based patient health records. As data management practitioners we know the usual benefits that arise from switching to electronic records – real-time access, backup, archiving, and transportability and so on.  However, the opportunity to leverage data quality and identity resolution on health records promises even more benefits in saving lives and reducing healthcare costs.

But any time there is a discussion about gaining insight into identities and sharing access to personally identifiable information, concerns regarding privacy take center stage.  Patient identification and Health information exchanges are no exception.

In the months following 9/11, a very similar debate happened regarding homeland security.  Projects that leveraged access to vast databases of financial transactions and public records, coupled with identity resolution algorithms were able to connect disparate dots and compute detailed threat analyses. Nevertheless, the risks to privacy from data breaches and concerns about government access to vast stores of private citizen information continue to be recurring themes in today’s security environment.

 But do the benefits of complete and actionable data always conflict with the desire to secure and maintain privacy?

A few weeks ago I spent some time with an Informatica customer – they plan to use data quality and identity resolution technology to PRESERVE customer privacy. This company acquired a handful of other competitors in a short period of time and as a result, customer information was scattered in divisional systems with varying quality and standards. To complicate matters, many of their operations are truly global and customers’ addresses represent at least 60 countries. They faced an important challenge- how to preserve each customer’s privacy and opt-out preferences regardless of which subsidiary or channel the customer interacts with? Different email and physical address formats, inconsistent codes for privacy and contact preferences, and duplication of customer records were some of the data challenges facing this organization. Now, Informatica data quality is being utilized to cleanse, standardize and validate their customer data to create an accurate view of all customers including individual privacy choices.

What if legitimate and controlled access to personal private information could help save lives? Informatica customers such as the Cancer Council of New South Wales rely on our solutions to ensure continuity of care. Identity Resolution is used to locate health records across disparate sources, despite the error and variation in patient identities.  Our customers use data quality to standardize medical data – potentially saving lives and preventing unwanted tests, medications & procedures.

The United States Congress has put $45 billion on the table to help physicians and hospitals adopt computerized medicine.  Information technology has an important role in fulfilling the promise of improved medical outcomes and reduced costs, while preserving privacy and security.

What do you think – will privacy and information access continue to be seen as competing objectives? Or will privacy be viewed as a necessary component of a wider objective?