What precautions should be taken to ensure patient confidentiality when using electronic medical records?

Throughout recent years, the use of technology in healthcare has become standard throughout the medical industry. With the increased use of medical software and the heightened value of health care data, it’s critical to make efforts to protect patient information better. While security has always been one of the more significant concerns regarding health care information technology, great strides have been made as of late to tighten up the protection of critical data. In this article we will cover 8 ways to maintain health care information security.

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Throughout this article, we’ll dive deeper into the importance of preserving health care information security, including:

• Properly Maintaining Health Care Information Security
• Understanding Threats
• Importance of Taking Protective Measures
• In Conclusion

Properly Maintaining Health Care Information Security

Although data theft isn’t limited to the health care industry, many incidents outpace most other industries. So, why is maintaining proper health information security such a problem?

According to a RiskBased Security report, “The number of records exposed during the reporting period exceeded 22 billion. While this is 14.5 billion fewer records exposed than in 2020 (the year that set an all-time high of 37.2 billion records exposed), it is the second-highest year for the amount of confidential data compromised since 2005. The number of breaches reported in the United States increased 10%, growing to 2,932 in 2021 compared to 2,645 in 2020.”

Companies are on a constant lookout for security systems to minimize the level of risk to their private data.

While you may think changing your electronic health record (EHR ) or electronic medical record (EMR) vendor should solve the problem, this isn’t the most logical solution. Health IT still involves several manual processes. Meeting HIPAA requirements isn’t always sufficient, with the value of patient data making them targets for hackers. Health care businesses need to protect their data better, through software security as well as proactive, manual practices. This is not only for the safety of their clients but their employees as well.

Although it’s not an easy task, keeping health care information secure is necessary and will pay off in the long term. Now, the question of the hour is, what are some ways to maintain security of health information? To help, we came up with a list of strategies to better maintain health care information security and prevent health data breaches:

Control Data Accessibility

According to a recent Cybersecurity Insiders report, 98% of health care organizations are vulnerable to data breach incidents involving insiders, the highest percentage of insider threats in any industry. A good rule of thumb is that patient information should only be accessible on a need-to-know basis. This means that certain patient information should only be available to a physician or support staff member briefly, as they shouldn’t be able to access this data all willy-nilly whenever they so choose

Cerner EHR allows permissible users to review patient information and histories.

Another important step to ensuring security remains intact is to properly educate end-users on the security risks relating to health care data. This will help them act fast and decisively if a security issue occurs at any time. At the same time, patients can take similar precautions to ensure the security of sensitive information, like making sure access to such data is password-protected.

Train Employees To Recognize Potential Attacks

With the adoption of health care information technology in its early stages, employees are still getting used to it. Policies and procedures need to change to accommodate the digitization of patient records to ensure health care data security. But just making new policies only goes so far without proper training.

As we just discussed, a large number of security mishaps involve insiders. That said, it’s worth noting that according to a HIPAA Journal report, “In 2021, an average of 59 data breaches were reported each month and 712 health care data breaches were reported between January 1 and December 31, 2021. That sets a new record for health care data breaches, exceeding last year’s total by 70 – An 10.9% increase from 2020.” Such an act is usually avoidable, and proper training goes a long way to help avoid those kinds of mistakes.

Security awareness training can allow your employees to recognize potential security threats better and make smarter decisions. This type of training can help encourage users to employ appropriate caution when it comes to handling patient data. It’s essential to train all your new and old employees on updated data security procedures.

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Implement Endpoint Protection Solutions

Regardless of the nature and source of a cyber attack, monitoring and controlling every endpoint is crucial to ensure health care data security. Solutions such as application whitelisting protect all possible endpoints and enable an organization to implement access control practices to mitigate threats.

Furthermore, traditional antivirus solutions are obsolete, and it is advisable to migrate to next-generation antivirus/antimalware solutions powered by artificial intelligence and deep learning capabilities to detect and kill viruses. You can also integrate the security solution with existing management solutions for all-around protection.

Take Note of the Devices Your Data Passes Through

The Internet of Things means that our world is filled with more devices seemingly every day. In today’s workplace, you’ll find a plethora of laptops, tablets, smartphones and other devices. With more employees accessing business software with mobile applications, personal devices are becoming the go-to for conducting business. But more devices accessing your data also makes it more vulnerable.

To reduce the chances of a breach in your health care data security, consider having your IT staff assess the risk of every device that will access your data. Ensure they check even personal tablets/smartphones before allowing them entry onto the premises. In fact, they’re more important as they tend to be more vulnerable compared to devices used exclusively for business.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean digging through your employees’ private information. You can and should look at the security capabilities of each device accessing your data. If you haven’t already done so, start ASAP. The longer you wait, the more you’ll have to catch-up, and the more vulnerable you leave yourself and your data.

There are tools developed to help determine the current inventory of devices on your network, as well. These tools can identify when new devices have been added and give you the visibility to monitor devices are connected to the network and what information they are sending.

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Secure Your Wireless Networks and Messaging Systems

Similar to how more devices make you more vulnerable, more wireless connections does the same. If your practice offers free Wi-Fi for patients and a messaging system, your data, in turn, is more vulnerable. Now, we’re not saying get rid of either of these; they’re probably reasons why patients have chosen you in the first place. But their security is often overlooked since they don’t store patient records.

It’s a good idea to create automated procedures that update devices and users. This helps ensure ex-employees don’t continue to have access and that new technology isn’t left unprotected.

When it comes to your health IT solution, it’s important to keep your system current with any software updates that may arise. Not updating a system in a timely fashion exposes it to a higher risk of being breached. Additionally, software updates typically help your system run more smoothly and provide fixes for difficult-to-use tools, so there are a number of advantages in addition to security.

Many organizations believe that if they’re complying with HIPAA, they’re doing enough. However, health care facilities can take steps, like data encryption, to help further comply with HIPAA standards. Encrypting your health records, medical records and other data while ensuring the security of devices are relatively small but critical steps to help protect against a breach.

Safeguard Paper Records

Yes, not every problem lies in your health information technology software. Sometimes, you need to look at something a little old-school to keep health care data security intact. You may have the most secure EMR/EHR system in the world, but ignoring paper record security can just as easily lead to a data breach.

The security of your paper records goes hand-in-hand with proper training, as paper records resulting in a breach can occur from a lack of training. For example: leaving a file open on the front desk or, even worse, leaving records out in the open unlocked. Despite your digital data being the most easily accessible by hackers, you can’t forget about securing good ol’ fashioned paper records as long as you have them.

Incident Response Plan

In the event of a data breach, it is important for you to stop information theft as soon as the leak is detected. To that end, putting an incident response plan (IRP) in place can prevent the attacker from causing more harm. Establish a quick response architectural framework that can trigger the predetermined protocols to stop a hacker in his tracks. Be certain to teach all the new and existing employees the security protocols in place to ensure they can take swift action if a breach occurs.

Device Encryption

Want to mitigate data breaches even more? Get your laptops and the medical software encrypted before using them. Encryption automatically bolsters your cyber security defense as breachers won’t be able to crack the code without a key. In the event of an attack, all the financial and important data are backed up and locked by an encryption code, thereby keeping it safe. In a medical facility, patients’ critical information and your hospital’s financial invoices and reports can be a target of hackers. Secure the data with access-level controls to allow only selected people to access it.

Although these strategies will drastically reduce the likelihood of a data breach, the reality is that owning any kind of valuable data carries an inherent risk. Think of it as a continuum of risk — You can do nothing and be at 100% risk, or you can do a lot, and you can get the risk down to around 10% to 15%.

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Understanding Threats

A data breach is an attack on a server that exposes confidential files and information to a foreign attacker. Advanced ransomware and malware are the tools that come in handy for a hacker to attack a server and get access to all the secret files and folders. Security in health care information systems are gradually improving with time. However, there are more elements than a simple virus that can cause mayhem in a security system.

Ransomware

Ransomware has been a significant type of threat that is disrupting cyberspace. These attacks typically encrypt the infected files and revoke user access, holding the owner to ransom. It is a threat that is widespread in the USA and Europe. Ransomware usually infiltrates a network, target database and file servers and can, thus, quickly paralyze an entire organization.

Phishing

Apart from ransomware, phishing is another major threat to health care data security. Hackers often execute this type of attack to obtain personal data on a user, including their login credentials and credit card numbers. Phishing attacks usually begin with a malicious email sent to the targeted user. As soon as they open the attachment, malware enters the system and hacks personal data.

Mobile Data Applications

With more health and wellness programs on the way, mobile applications are emerging at a fast pace in today’s health care to support telemedicine and telehealth better. That said, patients and clinical staff must be made aware of the looming security threats and data theft possibilities on such applications. Patients, doctors and all medical professionals use mobile devices and tablets, opening the door for hackers to steal sensitive data.

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Importance of Taking Protective Measures

We’ve gone over a number of ways to help improve the security of health care information, but you may be wondering why exactly it is that this is such a crucial task. From an efficiency standpoint to increased patient demands, below are some of the most significant reasons for maintaining secure data.

Maintaining Efficiency

One of the primary benefits of maintaining health care data security is keeping efficiency from going down. A data breach often requires health organizations to switch back to using paper and pen for documentation while they sort out getting their data back. With the growing population and number of clients, facilities are already struggling to keep up; downtime would only further intensify this struggle. Keeping data secure helps to keep your traffic at its highest potential, allowing your physicians to treat more patients daily.

It’s Important To Patients

When it comes to keeping health care data secure, it’s debatably more critical from a patient perspective than that of a health care organization. Not only do patients wish to keep their health information confidential for the sake of their privacy, but it’s also important from the perspective of health facilities for several legal reasons, notably doctor-patient confidentiality agreements.

PracticeEHR’s patient portal allows patients to check lab results, schedule appointments and more securely.

Remember, health IT software stores a variety of patient data — not just medical — such as insurance, credit cards and other personal information. If hacked, this person risks identity theft as information can be stolen and used or else sold on the black market. Ensuring a secure database is the best way to prevent these types of theft from happening.

The Cost of a Data Breach Can Be Expensive

It’s easy to understand how a data breach could force your organization to cough up hefty amounts of money for lawsuits when you note just how valuable health care data has become. According to a Grand View Research report, “The U.S. medical device manufacturers market size was valued at USD 176.7 billion in 2020 and is anticipated to exhibit a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.0% over the forecast period.” With more and more organizations purchasing medical software and related devices to strengthen security measures, it can be said that in the future, the threat count may decrease.

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In Conclusion

While all of this can (understandably) be a lot to take in, knowing how to properly maintain health care information security is critical when it comes to managing your health organization. In a world where data is increasingly becoming more valuable, protecting that data is becoming equally as important.

Do you still have any questions regarding health care information security? Has a data breach affected your facility? How has your organization taken steps to prevent data breaches? Let us know in the comments.

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