OpenMRS De-Identification Rules

Owned by Steven Githens
Last updated: Jul 20, 2013 by Sara Fatima
2 min read

Below are the set of rules ( in plain english psuedocode ) that we are applying to OpenMRS Patients and their encounters to de-identify them.  This is a work in progress.

For a org.openmrs.Patient and org.openmrs.Person Object we need to remove the 18 PHI Identifiers:

  • Names
    • Remove all names (a patient can have multiple names in OpenMRS with a preferred name) and replace with a fake name (e.g., name(s) selected from a pool of fake names).
  • Geographic data
    • Remove all addresses (a patient can have multiple addresses) and generate a fake address.
    • Remove all GPS data.
  • Dates
    • For birthdate, replace month & day with random values for patients under 60 years of age.  For patients 60+ years of age, adjust year randomly by ±5 years.
    • For all data (observations, encounters, etc.) replace month & day with random values, keeping sequence of data (intervals will change randomly).
    • For all other dates, randomly replace month & day.
  • Person attributes
    • Remove all person attributes, which could include telephone data, fax numbers, or other identifiable data.
  • Telephone numbers
    • These are often included in a Person's extra attribute data.
  • FAX numbers
    • These are often included in a Person's extra attribute data.
  • Email addresses
    • These are often included in a Person's extra attribute data.
  • National identifiers
    • Remove all patient identifiers, replacing with a fake (randomly generated & unique) identifier.
  • Medical record numbers
    • Remove all patient identifiers, replace with a fake (randomly generated & unique) identifier.
  • Health plan beneficiary numbers
  • Account numbers
  • Certificate/license numbers
  • Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers including license plates
  • Device identifiers and serial numbers
  • Web URLs
  • Internet protocol addresses
  • Biometric identifiers (i.e. retinal scan, fingerprints)
  • Full face photos and comparable images
  • Any unique identifying number, characteristic or code

For each Patients org.openmrs.Encounter Object we will need to do the following:

  • Randomize the month & day of Encounter Datetime, keeping encounters in the same sequence without maintaining intervals between them.
  • Assign random location of the encounter. 
  • We may also need some sort of 'obs filter' that includes a list of obs and rules specific to the concept dictionary that must be removed from encounters. Family Data:
  • Remove all relationships between persons.