Biometrics – Role in HC – What About a Voice Print?

I have always found biometrics a fascinating topic (i.e., fingerprint recognition, retinal scans). Usually, you only see them employed in James Bond type movies or movies like The Bourne Identity. But, my first job out of undergraduate school was at SH&G which is a large architecture firm in Detroit. We designed US embassies and access to that area of the building was only through a retinal scanner.

Healthcare, much like financial services, is massively paranoid about security. [For good reason.] Just like you don’t want fraud on your credit card, you don’t want all your private healthcare information being shared with the world. One of the challenges in healthcare communications is therefore authentication. When you send a letter, technically it can’t be opened by anyone other than the recipient (without breaking the law). With the phone, you typically ask a question or questions – is this “John Smith” and/or “what is your member id”. The more questions (aka layers of authentication) or the more unique the question (e.g., give me the prescription refill number off your bottle) then the more sure you are of who are speaking with. Of course, as you make the questions more specific the questions or add more questions, you increase the difficulty for the consumer.

So, would consumers use a voice print? It is easier than fingerprinting or retinal scans in that you don’t need hardware at the patient’s location. You simply have to match an audio file against a prior file. It seems like an easy solution. Perhaps, once all computers are touchscreen, we could use handwriting recognition to send secure e-mail.