Hong Kong's Hospital Authority announced Monday it has set up a task force on patient data security, in a move that came after several cases of data loss were reported due to missing electronic devices in the recent months.

The task force will be charged with reviewing the clinical and operational requirements for exporting of clinical data in the Hospital Authority, assessing data security protection mechanisms in place and suggesting possible improvements.

They will submit a report to the Hospital Authority in three months.

Local media reported a case of missing USB flash drive for storing the personal information of 665 patients in late April, which was soon followed by the exposure of at least two other similar cases and led to pressure on the Hospital Authority.

Shane Soloman, chief executive of the Hospital Authority, said there were nine reported such cases in the past 12 months ended by April 30, according to related records.

The lost devices included 4 USB memory sticks, a palm hand-held device, an MP3 player, a central processing unit, a laptop computer and a digital camera.

"While a total of 5,988 patients were involved, 3,117 of the losses did not involve any personal particulars," Soloman said, adding that about one third of the 2,871 data items involving personal particulars of the patients were not password-protected.

Eight of the nine cases have been reported to the police and seven were theft-related. The data lost were mainly collected manually and some of the patients have been contacted, but so far there have been no reported cases of patient data leakage, he said.

York Chow, secretary for Food and Health of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, said he believed cases of patient data security breach were not many, considering the huge amount of patient data handled by the hospitals.

Chow said it was risky for medical officers to transfer patient data by using USB devices in order to work away from their offices and called for the development of guidelines on patient data security as soon as possible.

(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2008)