It’s Vital That Patient Data Is Protected in the Digital World

It’s Vital That Patient Data is protected in the Digital World Patient data must be protected. A provider of document scanning services can digitize medical data ensuring HIPAA compliance and other privacy mandates.

Managed Outsource Solutions 8596 E. 101st Street, Suite H www.managedoutsource.com Tulsa, OK 74133

(800) 670 2809

Healthcare organizations handle various records ranging from patient data to images and emails to medical records and payment information and the ideal method to store all these data safely is by digitization of data. With the help of document scanning services, healthcare data can be transformed into digital format and stored on multiple devices maintaining HIPAA compliance and other privacy mandates. Switching to healthcare records online will enable uniform and better access to healthcare data across a range of devices and most importantly save money across the system. However, rushing to adopt technology without implementing adequate security measures could lead to data breach.

As mentioned earlier, the privacy of patient data is ensured by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. Today the world is highly complex and with all the advanced technology the chances of data breach are rising. Therefore, the demand for vigilance is also high.

Michael J Sacopulos is CEO of Medical Risk Institute (MRI), a firm that provides proactive counsel to the healthcare community to remove any risks. According to Mr. Sacopulos, lack of proper cyber hygiene like human errors is one of the most common reasons for cyber threat. Your staffs should be trained not to click on unwanted emails. They should be made aware that doing so could open the door for hackers to access the system and install malware on the computer. So teach your staff to recognize and understand such threats that really exist. Another reason for data breach is multi tasking. Employees should dedicate specific time and space to working on practice-related matters and not multitask. Similarly, any private calls such as insurance calls or returning a patient call should be done in private. Setting up computers only for medical practice-related matters is a good method to avoid cyber threat to a certain extent. So, do not let anyone access these computers.

Healthcare organizations should be careful about software related issues too to avoid data breach. It is important to keep software supported and up to date. Updates are patches that the manufacturer recommends if they find vulnerabilities. Sticking on to older version of software could make your computer systems vulnerable and lead to data breach.

The Need for IT Experts Assigning a professional IT expert to conduct and troubleshoot software issues or handle phishing e-mails and potential breaches is important for healthcare organizations. They conduct annual risk analysis and suggest what improvements need to be made. Staff

www.managedoutsource.com

(800) 670 2809

members who are not involved in providing care to the patient should be prevented from accessing that patient’s records. The e-mail accounts and passwords of former employees should be immediately deactivated so they can no longer access your network. The ex-employee’s key or swipe card should be returned and if there is a combination lock, the combination should be changed. Today’s Androids and iPhones have passwords to ensure safety of data.

Other Ways to Prevent Data Breach •

Conduct thorough background checks of all the staffs working in the healthcare organization.

•

Healthcare staffs that have access to sensitive data should undergo a thorough data security and privacy compliance training. They should at least be trained on the relevant requirements for HIPAA, GDPR and PCI DSS.

•

Limit the access to sensitive and confidential data. Health organizations should enforce principal of least privilege user access (LUA) on all computer systems. It ensures that the employees have only the minimum level of access necessary to do their jobs.

•

Alert the appropriate staff if an employee wants to view sensitive patient data unnecessarily or asks the employee to re-enter their password when accessing confidential information or the records of a high-profile patient.

It is important for healthcare organizations to have a strong infrastructure and the right combination of regulations and security best practices to avoid data breaches. Hiring document scanning company is the most efficient way to convert all medical records into digital format and also maintain the confidentiality of each medical record. Patient data will always be a major target for cyber criminals. However, with automation there will be consistency and clear audit trails that assures a security framework to meet regulatory requirements.

www.managedoutsource.com

(800) 670 2809