Sen Coburn: Computerized patient records will bring on hackers

Sen Tom Coburn (R-OK) -- ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Privacy, Technology and the Law Subcommittee -- is warning that the nation's transition to electronic patient records will lure cyber intruders and should be reconsidered.

The federal government is spending nearly $20 billion in economic stimulus funds to move doctors from paper to digital records for storing health information. With privacy and money at stake, a Senate Judiciary Committee panel met Wednesday afternoon to review the current rubric for protecting health information in a wired society. Backers of electronic health records say the technology has the potential to improve treatment, lower costs and advance research. Critics of recent implementations, including Sen Coburn say e-patient records are ripe for hacking. At the hearing, Sen Coburn, a practicing obstetrician, referenced the exploits of Chinese cyber attackers to illustrate the vulnerability of digital versus paper information. "There are always going to be people who will go around" computer security to obtain sensitive information, he said. "Just ask our Defense Department with China right now. Ask our private companies with China right now -- the hacking that's going on. The very sophisticated people, they've got to get into my office to get it, when it's on a piece of paper."