Modes of De-identification.

De-identification of protected health information is an essential method for protecting patient privacy. Most institutes require de-identification of patient data prior to conducting scientific studies; therefore, it is important for clinical scientists to be cognizant of all modes of de-identification and all services provided by their de-identification tools. In this article, we discuss eight different modes of de-identification that yield de-identified data at different levels of quality. Most of these modes can be used in combination to achieve the best performance.