Table 1 Example of strings that may indicate PHI if they are used as variable names

Medical Record Number

MRN, Medical_Record_Number, Medical_Record_Num, Medical_Record_No, Med_Rec_No, Med_Record_Num,

Subject Name

Name, First_Name, Last_Name, birth_name, maiden_name, Surname

Social Security Number

SSN, social_security_number, SocialSecuityNumber, socsec

Birth/death dates

Birth_date, bday, birthDate, death_date, deathDay

Health encounter dates

Encounter_dt, enc_dt, encDt

Locally “forbidden” variable names

Medical_history_number|MHN|Pat_ID|Pat_MRN_Id