Most modern-day healthcare workers are aware of the growing importance of data security in healthcare and realize why patient data must remain confidential following Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act standards. HIPAA statistics reveal that there are still many cybersecurity incidents even though a lot of threat-prevention steps have been taken.
Traditionally, medical information was kept in envelopes and locked in a storage room. With time, health information management shifted to cloud-based solutions. However, this made the data vulnerable to cyber-attacks. It is important to ensure confidentiality and security as health information like diagnosis, treatment, and medical history is sensitive.
What is Data Security in Healthcare
Data security in healthcare deals with preventing unauthorized access to the health records that are stored digitally. Data privacy and security in healthcare defend organizations against cyber threats and data breaches. Procedures that can ensure data security in healthcare organizations include data masking, data encryption, tokenization, and disaster recovery.
The protected health information includes the following:
- Name
- Birth date
- Death date
- Admission date
- Treatment dates
- Discharge date
- Telephone number and other contact details
- Social security number
- Address
- Medical record number
- Photographs
- Biometric identifiers like voice, retinal, and fingerprints
- Any other identifying number
The HIPAA Security Rule or Security Standards for the Protection of Electronic Protected Health Information deals with the ePHI (electronic protected health information) standards. According to this rule, organizations must take the right physical, technical, and administrative actions to ensure the security, integrity, and confidentiality of the electronically transmitted PHI.
Why Is Data Security Important In Healthcare
Data security is important for healthcare providers for various reasons.
Patient Confidentiality and Trust: It is essential that the patients feel confident that the personal information they provide is secure and won’t be disclosed without first getting their consent. This trust is very important for the healthcare-patient professional relationship. It encourages them to open up and be honest about their medical condition, which aids in the correct diagnosis and treatment.
Care Quality: The overall quality of care will be high if the security and privacy of patient information are upheld. Secure and accurate information helps healthcare professionals make informed decisions, which provides better outcomes. For instance, with safe access to electronic health records, healthcare professionals will have all the medical history information of their patients, which will let them formulate the treatment plan. Data security breaches in healthcare, on the other hand, may have just the opposite effect.
Regulatory Compliance: Many regulations and laws like the European Union’s GDPR, HIPAA of the United States, and KVKK of Turkey make it essential to ensure data security, thus highlighting the importance of data security in healthcare. These regulations urge all medical organizations to follow the security and data privacy best practices to reduce the risk of a breach and ensure legal compliance.
Risk Mitigation: A data breach can cause serious consequences, which include reputational damage, legal actions, and financial penalties. Proper data privacy and security measures will let the healthcare organizations avoid such risks.
Research and Innovation: Data security in healthcare information systems is also important for research and innovation. The data can give researchers important insights and medical knowledge in advance, which can then be used for treatment and patient welfare. Of course, prior permission from the patient is required for the use of such data.
Data Security Risks In Healthcare
Healthcare organizations need to understand that many data security risks can affect them.
Here are some of the major data security challenges in healthcare:
- Cyber attacks: With technology improving, there are so many types of cyber attacks now like malware, ransomware, and phishing, which are always evolving. These threats pose a significant threat. Several studies have revealed that many healthcare organizations from around the world are open to cyber attacks.
- Insider threats: Insiders like the employees with access to sensitive data can compromise its safety. Many instances of breaches happen from this source and the intention is often malicious. Sometimes, they are disgruntled employees or those looking to earn a quick and easy buck.
- Data breaches: Unauthorized access to sensitive data or patient records can cause a data breach, leading to reputational damage and financial loss.
- Regulatory non-compliance: There can be both legal consequences and hefty fines when the organization fails to comply with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.
- Legacy systems: There can be network vulnerability if the system is unsupported or outdated, which may expose the data to an attack.
- Third-party risks: A healthcare organization may have to share data with a partner or third-party vendor. Even if the data is protected with the organization it may still be at risk with an outside organization if proper protection measures are not taken.
- Human error: A data breach is often caused unintentionally. Often, the breach happens because of an employee mistake, like sending sensitive data to the wrong recipient.
The healthcare organization must first understand these risks and then take steps to mitigate them to the best of their abilities. This will go a long way in safeguarding healthcare data to maintain patient trust.
Healthcare Security Requirements
Healthcare data is often sensitive as it includes electronic health records (EHRs) and personal health information (PHI). Healthcare security compliance refers to adhering to the established regulations, best practices, and standards. It is essential to maintain robust security measures to ensure data integrity and patient privacy.
Here are some of the major healthcare data security compliance standards for various healthcare organizations:
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) – HIPAA has set standards for protecting patient health information to ensure integrity, confidentiality, and the availability of electronic PHI. HIPAA establishes national standards in the US to protect ePHI, which is received, created, maintained, or transmitted through the electronic medium. The HIPAA requirements are strict. It governs how data can be used and disclosed. It also outlines the rights of an individual.
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) – The GDPR compliance requirements concern organizations in the European Union. However, it can have global implications for how healthcare organizations handle personal information.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework – These standards were developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It provides guidelines on what steps the organizations should take to improve their cybersecurity risk management. It deals with protecting data, detecting threats, responding to an attack, and recovery.
ISO/IEC 27001 – This standard provides guidelines to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve the information security management system. It deals with risk assessment and management. The application area of ISO/IEC 27001 is worldwide.
FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act) – FISMA mandates federal agencies to develop, document, and implement security programs, which include risk management processes. Applicable in the United States, the different information systems must be monitored periodically.
HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) – This act strengthens HIPAA further by introducing more penalties and provisions in case there is non-compliance. According to the requirements, both the Department of Health and Human Services and individuals must be notified if there is a data breach.
For any help, healthcare organizations can approach the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety or IAHSS. It helps healthcare professionals implement and manage safety and security.
Healthcare Data Security Solutions
- Advanced Data Encryption: Data encryption will make sure that patient information cannot be accessed easily even if the hackers can gain entry. They must have the decryption key.
- Ransomware Protection and Recovery: There are modern cyber security tools and incident response plans that can lower the impact of a threat. A regular backup plan and recovery solution can further protect data loss.
- Secure Wireless Networks: Robust encryption protocols, developing secure web applications, and having a secured wireless network will prevent unauthorized access.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Data security for healthcare must also include an additional layer to reduce the risk of unauthorized access. This will provide protection even when the password is compromised.
- Monitoring and AI Analytics: AI-powered analytics and system monitoring tools can identify unusual behavior like an unauthorized access attempt. Smart healthcare data security software will alert the IT team immediately.
- Employee Training: Train the staff so that they can identify phishing emails and enter strong passwords. This will reduce the chance of human errors.
Final Thoughts
Healthcare information security will ensure security of privacy of patient data, which will build trust. The patients must feel confident that the information they share will always remain safe. Healthcare providers will improve patient engagement by complying with relevant regulations and implementing various healthcare data security measures. The healthcare system will be more trustworthy, effective, and efficient.
Priya Mervana
Verified Web Security Experts
Priya Mervana is working at SSLInsights.com as a web security expert with over 10 years of experience writing about encryption, SSL certificates, and online privacy. She aims to make complex security topics easily understandable for everyday internet users.
