Who Coordinates The Development Of Data Security Policies In A Healthcare Organization?

Posted By on Oct 13, 2021

HIPAA requires healthcare organizations of all sizes to secure protected wellness information (PHI), merely how tin covered entities secure patient information? If yous are asked how you secure patient information, could you provide an respond?

How Can You Secure Patient Data?

HIPAA requires healthcare organizations and their business concern associates to implement safeguards to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of PHI, although at that place is trivial item provided on how to secure patient information in HIPAA regulations.

This is intentional, equally the footstep that engineering science is advancing is far greater than the speed at which HIPAA tin be updated. If details were included, they would soon exist out of date.

Engineering is constantly changing and new vulnerabilities are beingness discovered in systems and software previously thought to be secure. Securing patient information is therefore non about implementing security solutions and forgetting about them. To truly secure patient data you must regularly review your security controls, update policies and procedures, maintain software and security solutions, and upgrade when new, better solutions are developed.

At that place is no single security solution that tin can be used to secure patient data. To continue patient data secure you need to implement layered defenses – A range of protective mechanisms that slow down any potential attack and brand data access much more hard. This is often referred to as defence force in depth.

Typical security measures that can be implemented as office of a layered security strategy include:

A firewall to prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing your network and data
A spam filter to cake malicious emails and malware
An antivirus solution to block and detect malware on your system
A web filter to prevent employees from accessing malicious websites
Access and privacy controls to forestall improper access from within the system
Information encryption on all portable devices
Encryption to protect information in transit – encrypted email for instance
A secure (HIPAA-compliant) messaging platform that encrypts all communications
An intrusion detection system that monitors for file changes and irregular network activeness
Auditing solutions that monitor for improper accessing of patient information
Disaster recovery controls to ensure continued admission to information in the event of an emergency
Extensive backups to ensure patient information is never lost
Security solutions allowing the remote deletion of data stored on mobile devices in the event of loss or theft
Security awareness and anti-phishing training for staff
Physical controls to foreclose data and equipment theft
Vulnerability scanning and penetration testing to place vulnerabilities before they are discovered by hackers
Good patch direction policies to ensure software is kept up to engagement and free from vulnerabilities

HIPAA-covered entities tin implement all, or a selection of these security controls, or can outsource these services to managed service provider (MSP).

Patients Might Ask How Their PHI is Secured

If a patient asked you how exercise you secure patient information, would you lot be able to provide them with an answer? For many physicians, the answer would be no. Physicians are concerned with providing care to patients, not with the nitty gritty of implementing security solutions and safeguards to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of PHI. That task is often left to their It departments and the individual in charge of HIPAA compliance. Many healthcare professionals would be in a similar boat.

However, given the volume of healthcare data breaches that are now occurring, and the risk of harm and loss as a result of the theft of PHI, many patients are concerned nearly information security and may enquire the question.

Patients desire to be reassured that any information provided to, created by, and maintained by their healthcare providers is secure and remains confidential. Information technology can be helpful to know what measures have been used to secure their data, so you can provide information in general terms.

In most cases a simple explanation is all that is required. Patients simply want reassurance that their health information is secure and will remain confidential.

In general terms, you lot could explain that you secure patient data past:

Encrypting PHI at rest and in transit (if that is the case)
Only storing PHI on internal systems protected past firewalls
Storing charts in secure locations they can only be accessed past authorized individuals
Using admission controls to forestall unauthorized individuals from accessing PHI
Merely sharing PHI with individuals or organizations to facilitate the provision, coordination, or management of health care and related services such as payment and billing
Only sharing PHI with a limited set of third parties subsequently a contract has been entered into to ensure they bide by strict rules covering uses and disclosures of PHI and data security
Re-train all staff (annually) to maintain high privacy and data security standards
You utilize the latest software versions and ensure all software and operating system are kept up to appointment and use anti-virus solutions to block malware

If patients crave more information or want details, y'all could explicate that for security reasons you cannot provide detailed information about security controls you have in place. Simply every bit you would not tell anyone where your safe is located and how many turns of the dial are required to open up it.