Do radiology and other health care presentations posted on the Internet contain accessible protected health information?
OBJECTIVE
To determine the prevalence of protected health information (PHI) in PowerPoint presentations available for downloading from the Internet.


METHODS
No institutional review board approval was needed for this project, which involved no patient subjects. Two Google searches, each limited to PowerPoint files, were performed by using the criteria "Cardiac CT" and "Magnetic Resonance Imaging." The first 100 hits of each search were downloaded from the source Web site. The presentations were examined for the PHI contained on any images, links, or notes pages.


RESULTS
Two hundred presentations were evaluated. There were 143 presentations with images, image links, or notes, and 52 (36%) of these contained PHI. There were 129 presentations containing radiologic images; 51 (40%) of these contained PHI, and 31 (24%) showed the patient's name. At least 132 (66%) of the 200 presentations originated from the United States. Thirty-five (37%) of 94 presentations with images, image links, or notes contained PHI. Eighty-six U.S. presentations contained radiologic images; 34 (40%) of these contained PHI, and 19 (22%) showed the patient's name.


CONCLUSIONS
Online or other distributions of PowerPoint presentations that contain radiologic images often contain PHI, and this may violate laws, including the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Weadock
William J
WJ
Department of Radiology, University of Michigan Medical Center, 1500 E Medical Center Dr, B1D520, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0030, USA. weadock@umich.edu
Londy
Frank J
FJ
Ellis
James H
JH
Goldman
Edward B
EB
D016494:Computer Security / Q000592:standards*; D003219:Confidentiality / Q000592:standards*; D007255:Information Services; D020407:Internet; D011871:Radiology; D014481:United States