The story of your health in a black box

Yikes! That hurts!

For years I thought that one answer to our broken healthcare system was electronic health records. I still think so, but with a lot of caveats.

The federal government is pushing hard for their adoption. Physicians, driven by the promise of better care, cost savings and nearly $23 billion in new federal incentive payments, are racing to turn their scribbled medical records into digital files, Smart Money reports.

Thirty-five percent of hospitals now use such systems, more than double the share two years ago, according to U.S. government figures. But for all the hype about electronic records, little attention has been paid to what some say is a serious weak spot: When those sensitive bits and bytes fall into the wrong hands, it's often patients who feel the pain.

Here's the trouble.

Since 2009, there have been more than 420 security breaches involving the records of some 19 million patients, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights. And such breaches are on the rise. A December 2011 report by the Ponemon Institute, a security-research firm, found that the frequency of data losses and thefts among health care organizations increased 32 percent over the previous year.

This is one reason I'm a skeptic about a national healthcare system. Already too many computer systems are familiar with my body.