Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Nesrin Tift provided comments to Bloomberg Law for an article outlining the privacy concerns related to hospitals’ use of voice-activated devices, such as Amazon’s Alexa, to access patient health records. The use of these devices is designed to provide easier access to health record information for both patients and medical staff, but potentially creates challenges for compliance with data privacy and security laws, including HIPAA. As Nesrin recommends, “Any hospital looking to use an Alexa-type device needs to make sure it conducts a thorough risk analysis to identify any privacy or security threats the devices could cause.”
The full article, “Alexa, What Medications Am I Taking,” was published by Bloomberg Law on January 23, 2019, and is available online.