The fact that the Unite States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has invested in a company commonly used to help manage health IT records in the United States and Canada has privacy advocates are worried.
Responsible for providing solutions to the CIA and the greater intelligence community, In-Q-Tel, a private venture group established by the Central Intelligence Agency, along with existing investors Sigma Partners and Apex Partners, invested in Initiate Systems earlier this year.
Initiate Systems offers accurate, scalable, rapidly implemented and widely deployed Enterprise Master Person Index (EMPI) available today. Their Initiate™ technology can create an accurate, complete view of patient information from data dispersed across multiple facilities, application systems and databases to deliver a comprehensive picture of each patient in real time at all points of service.
Initiate Systems' Identity Hub software uses a variety of identification protocols to determine whether records stored under similar names in different databases refer to the same or different patients. It also uses such demographic information as birthdays and address to match records to people who have used different names.
The software helps companies find stored information about clients or patients in real time, and helps to identify and delete duplicate records. It has also been used to quickly find prescription information when patients enter the emergency department.
The software is also used by large health care providers, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,
Could this technology be used by the CIA to poke around in patient's private health information? In-Q-Tel and Initiate Systems assures that this is a misplaced fear.