Modern day hospital management systems rely heavily on electronic data processing to maintain patient records. These electronic medical records (EMRs) must be maintained in an unaltered form by the creator. The need for a secure data handling method for the transmission and storage of text and digital media, comprising patient’s diagnostic history, imaging, scans, etc., is indispensible. This paper presents a novel method of text encryption by means of symmetric key encryption technique, using variable length key derived from the encrypted text itself.