A PKI is the linchpin of Internet security solutions. It works by issuing each person a pair of encryption keys and a digital certificate. In combination with the encryption keys, certificates provide a universal basis for encrypting data, authenticating individual health care stakeholders, locating health care information sources, managing information-access privileges, delegating authority to staff, and auditing information privacy and confidentiality provisions. CMA and the Tunitas Group are working with several other California health care organizations to create a Health Care PKI for physicians so that they can safely use the Internet for patient information. The Health Care PKI will give physicians back the control they need to manage patients' data and third-party access to it.
All patient information can be easily and cost-effectively encrypted for privacy.
Just as importantly, physicians can assure their patients that their medical data is closely guarded and disclosed only to those who have a need and a right to know. Routine use of secure e-mail can help reduce the time delays that frustrate patients while staff are hunting down records, verifying eligibility, obtaining lab reports, calling in prescriptions, setting up referrals, and tending to all the other office processes that occur in the course of a patient visit. Those physicians will use MEDePass certificates to send and receive secure e-mail and authenticate themselves to the health care organizations participating in the pilot. CMA's role is to establish and govern the process for issuing MEDePass certificates. CMA and PFMC to be the issuing agents for the pilot.