Protected health information in images: It's not always where you'd expect it

In this paper presentation, researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City point out the potential risk of protected health information (PHI) embedded in medical images.

While it's commonly understood that PHI is contained within the DICOM image header, less appreciated is the issue of PHI being embedded directly in the image, said senior author Krishna Juluru, MD. This can occur during screen captures and reformatted images.

The researchers investigated the extent of this problem by performing a visual inspection of the 672,586 images in their research PACS. They found that 780 (0.12%) contained image PHI. All were from screen saves or reformatted images.

"If you're an administrator of an archive, you need to curate the images to make sure no PHI is included," Juluru said.