Securely Disposing Medical Practice Equipment

It goes without saying that computers are expensive. Medical practices will often gift used office equipment to employees or family members; or donate them to vocational programs. Risk management attorney Ike Devji says that donating old equipment like scanners, fax machines, and computers at the end of the year is very common. "At the end of the year practices will rush to spend money so that it is not taxable. They buy [new] equipment … and computers are replaced."

There's just one small problem. Deleting sensitive patient data will not permanently eliminate it from the hard drive of the device. And if you've donated your practice's scanner to the local thrift store, it still contains sensitive patient data that "a well-trained 12-year-old kid with access to YouTube can get … off the hard drive," says Devji.

Devji points out that a high-end digital scanner can store up to 10,000 pages of patient data. And equipment that is synched to your EHR, even smartphones and tablets, needs to be destroyed or disposed of in a secure manner.

If you have old equipment that you'd like to get rid of, contact your IT consultant. He should be able to point you in the right direction. Or you could follow Devji's approach: He uses his old equipment for target practice in the Arizona desert.