What Is Data Security in Healthcare?

Healthcare data security has been one of the most important concerns in the healthcare domain. Improving healthcare service quality has been the main concern of many healthcare organizations. It is a sensible approach because an information system like EHR (electronic health record) is an integral part of keeping the premises going on.

What Is Data Security in Healthcare?
What Is Data Security in Healthcare?

 The safety of the procedures and operations of the organizations will also be tested in the particular category alone. GLORIUM TECH emphasizes the importance of healthcare data security quality to maintain the trustworthiness of the business. The huge challenge of healthcare data has been responded to by many reputable institutions and organizations. It is important to comprehend the basis of this matter before creating the appropriate strategies to improve the security of the data in the healthcare industry.

Defining the Healthcare Data Security

So, what is healthcare data security anyway? You will find this phrase often in the US and Europe regions. However, this term can be applied globally since more and more organizations across the world have seen this topic as an important one.

There are hundreds of definitions that you can find on the internet but the points will still be the same. Healthcare data security can be defined as the protection system of information with strict requirements and authority to access patient information.

The Health Data Security practice

Healthcare data security practices in the US at the federal or state levels can adopt the HIPAA Privacy Rule and Security Rule issued by HHS or Health and Human Services. While the HHS issues the rules of privacy and security, the one which enforces the rules is the OCR or Office for Civil Rights. They have the authority to enforce the monetary penalties for the criminals. When we link to this topic, the OCR will enforce the penalties to the hackers or other particular parties who are involved with the security breaches and other rules violations.

 GLORIUM TECH, one of the best software engineering providers in the world, suggests that these national standards can be adopted by other health organizations and entities in other countries to protect their patient or clients’ data. It is reasonable to adopt the rule because these sets of rules can apply to the most relevant sectors such as health plans, health care, the protected health information, and so on.

However, you shouldn’t be oblivious to the sets of rules issued by the authorities in your own country. It does not hurt to check with the health authority first before improving healthcare data security in your own company.

But we can agree that the ample security system can protect both the clients and the services providers in one go. On the other side, it will also ease the patients to access their own data without compromising the security and privacy of theirs. The patient rights include retrieving the health information, asking for copies of the data, requesting the corrections of the data, retrieving the information about the person who has the authority to access the data, and so on. The rights attributed to the patients will be different depending on the various variables such as the particular health organizations, the location of the patients, the location of health organizations, the state or federal laws, and many more.

The data that is protected

The practices of patient records in each hospital and other health organizations are supervised and regulated by the laws and regulations issued by each country’s authorities. One health authority can be different from another. But the most common data revolves around the personal information of the patients such as names, birth dates, dates of admission, and other relevant medical records, phone numbers, and other contact information mean, social security numbers, identification numbers, photographs, biometric data, and other personal information. This information should be kept within the patients, health organizations, and possibly authorities who have the license or permissions to access it such as policies, government parties, or others.

 The data risks

 According to GLORIUM TECH, there are some healthcare data security risks that all organizations need to pay attention including the transferable systems, email scams, human errors (employees, vendors, stakeholders, etc), wireless network security, poor offline security practices, outdated hardware and software, weak passwords and credentials, poor security practices amongst the staff, natural disasters, and so on. 

The reason for the risks

Health Industry is more vulnerable towards data breaches. Experts also stated that it has the higher risks of data breaches because of the nature of the data in the health niche.

As we know, healthcare organizations save and store the records of the patients including the name, address, date of birth, payment account information, and other relevant information. Because these organizations store and collect the kind of data, the risks of data attacks are inevitable at some points.

Dark web users have found a number of black markets which revolve around healthcare data for dishonest purposes. Compared to other types of stolen data, healthcare data tends to attract more enthusiasts in the black market. 

 We are not trying to speculate on things but many of the buyers are coming from unpredictable domains such as healthcare competitors, hackers, individuals, and some malicious groups of people. If you are running a business in the healthcare domains, your company is also prone to this risk if you are not fortifying your healthcare data security. For that reason, it is crucial that health organizations use the right data security solutions to counter the attempts of security breaches. 

The importance of using appropriate security solutions

 It is highly important to identify the risks in your health organizations in order to find the most appropriate solutions for them. GLORIUM TECH has years of experience in helping clients in the healthcare industry to find solutions. The data-stealing and other malicious attacks can greatly affect all businesses in a bad way. It is much better to prevent it from happening rather than fixing it.

Contact GLORIUM TECH now for further information.