I just heard a report on MED 7, yet the ambulance was using what sounded like encryption while the hospital was in the clear... anyone else hearing this in ABQ?
I just heard a report on MED 7, yet the ambulance was using what sounded like encryption while the hospital was in the clear... anyone else hearing this in ABQ?
HIPAA requires that personal medical information be protected. Many EMS providers protect that info via encryption when using a radio circuit to communicate a patient's medical status to a hospital.
In the old days, you could monitor FD/EMS being sent to a specific address on a medical call, then if the patient was transported, you could tune in the hospital/ambulance radio channel & learn that in addition to the bursitis flareup that resulted in the 9-1-1 call, the EMS crew might give the hospital a head's up that the patient has AIDS or something. Since AIDS is treated more as a civil rights issue than a public health issue, that sort of thing, plus of course the electronic medical records, became a privacy concern.
Actually You can give full reports to the hospital in the clear with no problems what so ever as long as you dont name the patient.
And you can still tune in to that EMS traffic today in many places. There is no requirement that radio communication need be encrypted as far as HIPAA is concerned.
Did I state otherwise?
In the old days, you could monitor FD/EMS being sent to a specific address on a medical call, then if the patient was transported, you could tune in the hospital/ambulance radio channel & learn that in addition to the bursitis flareup that resulted in the 9-1-1 call...