Smart de-identification using date jittering

A computer program product comprising a tangible storage medium encoded with processor-readable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, enable the computer program product to:

• receive a plurality of patient records from one or more databases;
• assign each of the received plurality of patient records into one of a first group associated with a first time period, a second group associated with a second time period, or a third group associated with a third time period, wherein the third time period falls between the first and second time periods;
• determine for each of the patient records in the third group a time shift, such that a respective time shifted patient record of the third group is outside the time periods associated with the first group and the second group;
• and
• generate a maximum time shift based on the determined time shifts for the patient records of the third groups;
• and
• for each of the patient records assigned to the third group, temporally shift the patient record by an amount less than the maximum time shift to anonymize the patient records in the third time group.

A computer system connected to a network, the system comprising:

• a memory configured to store instructions
• one or more processors configured to execute the instructions to:
• receive a plurality of patient records from one or more databases;
• assign each of the received plurality of patient records into one of a first group associated with a first time period, a second group associated with a second time period, or a third group associated with a third time period, wherein the third time period falls between the first and second time periods;
• determine for each of the patient records in the third group a time shift, such that a respective time shifted patient record of the third group is outside the time periods associated with the first group and the second group;
• and
• generate a maximum time shift based on the determined time shifts for the patient records of the third groups;
• and
• for each of the patient records assigned to the third group, temporally shift the patient record by an amount less than the maximum time shift to anonymize the patient records in the third time group.