Patent ID: 7543149

Claim:
A method for securing patient identity, the method comprising: accessing an electronic medical records database including patient data for a plurality of patients, wherein each said patient is assigned a unique patient identifier; retrieving said patient data for a first patient from said electronic medical records database, wherein said patient data for said first patient includes a first patient identifier; de-identifying said first patient from said patient data for said first patient including the creation of a first encoded patient identifier responsive to said first patient identifier, wherein said de-identifying results in de-identified first patient data and includes the replacement of said first patient identifier with said first encoded patient identifier; transmitting said de-identified first patient data to a data warehouse system; connecting data relating to said first patient in said data warehouse; and identifying a second patient in response to receiving report data including a second encoded patient identifier from said data warehouse system, wherein said identifying includes the creation of a second patient identifier responsive to said second encoded patient identifier, wherein said creation of said first encoded patient identifier includes: receiving a user entered password string; hashing said user entered password string into a sixteen digit number; and summing said sixteen digit number with said first patient identifier resulting in said first encoded patient identifier.