Fergie's Tech Blog

Companies Clamping Down on Messaging

An AP newswire article by Brian Bergstein, via The Boston Globe, reports that:

Whenever a doctor, nurse or administrator in Georgia's DeKalb Medical Center sends an e-mail, the message detours through a special box in the three-hospital system's computing cluster. The box analyzes the e-mail, scanning for sensitive information like patient names, prescription histories and Social Security numbers.

More than 1,200 times a month, the box finds such private data and automatically routes the message to a server that encrypts it for secrecy before sending it to its original destination. Sometimes, though, the box is unsure what to do, so it asks Sharon Finney.

Finney is the information security administrator, which makes her responsible for keeping the hospital in tune with medical privacy laws. Several times a week, the messaging-control system, set up by Proofpoint Inc., alerts Finney to e-mails awaiting her review.

posted by Fergie @ 8/19/2007 01:35:00 PM