Biometrics in the Private Sector(472) Research Paper

Biometrics in the Private Sector(472) - Research Paper Example This system offers plenty of benefits if incorporated in hospital administration. Firstly, it helps ease the workload in busy check-in areas where patients are made to provide a lot of information. The beauty of this system is that a simple hand scanning provides the hospital authorities with all the previous medical history of the patient. The BayCare Hospital Group uses the Patient Security Identity System in its all hospitals to identify the patients. In the opinion of Greene (2008), this is much more accurate than using numbers and names to search for patient records. For example, names may have different spellings but this unique system avoids such chances of misidentification. In addition, in some cases of emergency where the patient is unconscious and unable to provide the health care providers enough information about their identity and medical history, this hand reading can offer the history of past medications and health conditions. Thirdly, this is a useful strategy in cut ting down the chances of fraud Greene, 2008). To illustrate, there are cases in which patients use the name and insurance of other people illegally. However, this system prevents them from escaping identification. However, one has to admit the fact that there are serious issues associated with the collection, storage, and use of biometric information. For example, according to Abernathy & Tien (2003), the information collected may be subjected to function creep, which means the data collected is used for purposes other than the ones consented at the time of collection. For example, it is possible to use the medical history of a person to deny future medical insurance coverage, identifying the possible future susceptibility to certain fatal illnesses. Secondly, there are Radio Frequency Identification chips which enable someone to read this information anonymously, even from a distance of 20 meters (Abernathy & Tien, 2003). The risk of