Physician's awareness of e-prescribing security risks

Abstract

New governmental legislation introduced e-prescription as mandatory in the Portuguese health system. This changes consequences were not properly considered, which caused security problems related to patient and prescriber's data, such as digital identity fraud or access to prescriptions history to build clinical profiles. In order to evaluate the e-prescribing software users awareness to those risks, a survey took place, and the results revealed ignorance of certain obligations and procedures of the e-prescribing process. A significant part of doctors are not conscious about where the patient's data is stored neither about the risks related with prescription's information.