Patent ID: 7519591

Claim:
A method for processing data, comprising the steps of: obtaining a patient data record of a patient which includes patient identifying information; removing the patient identifying information from the patient data record to generate a de-identified data record comprising unencrypted patient data in the patient data record which does not identify the patient; generating an encrypted ID for the patient, wherein the encrypted ID comprises an encrypted representation of one or more items of patient identifying information; and storing the encrypted ID with or in the de-identified data record, wherein the step of removing the patient identifying information in the patient data record includes automatically removing patient identifying information from an unstructured data record by locating a text string in the unstructured data records that includes patient identifying information, and removing the text string from the unstructured data record, wherein the text string to be removed from the unstructured data record is determined based on a matching text string that is included in a database element of a structured data record associated with the unstructured data record.