Information Security And The Healthcare

Health information is a fundamental piece of data which represents a person, business, organization, or a community. This data is vital in monitoring and coordination of care for individuals and communities. It not only monitors and coordinates patient care, but reduces costly mistakes and prevent duplication of treatments as well as taking a pivotal role in preserving, securing, and protecting personal health information. Since, this information is extremely essential and sensitive, it must remain secure and safe to prevent frauds and cyber-attacks. First of all, this paper discusses vitality of the health information in regards to individuals, professionals, and organizations along with its benefits to improve overall quality of life. Secondly, it discusses the role of information technology in various aspects of the industry and the what the future holds within IT.

There is no doubt in that technology has multifaceted benefits but, at the same time, it has forced mankind to feel insecure. Every industry depends upon the data of the customers and the health industry is no more an exception here. The data of each patient is shared to facilitate health itself and for more rigorous and authentic research. Hence, protecting patient data is very important. It is so important that in 1996, the federal government introduced the Health Insurance

Hospitals have put in place widespread security and privacy measures to protect patient health information. However, there are still errors being made in data security through the IT standpoint. Some of these errors or issues include:

In a large service-related Healthcare organization with the staff to patient ratio approximately 1:100, there is a greater threat by technology of breaching security records. Medical records include information about ones physical and mental being. They may contain information about ones relationship with family members, sexual behavior, drug or alcohol problems and HIV status ( Burke & Weill, 2005). The confidentiality is threatened when the medical records information is put on the Internet, by use of telemedicine, and by the use of e-mail by healthcare workers. Although this is the fastest way to store and share

With the introduction of information technology advancement into the hospital health care system, we must embrace in this technology and must ensure that we have a more efficient and secure system. This will allow us to create measures that will allow us to protect electronic protected health information (ePHI). All data that is being transmitted on any open networks will be protected from any cyber attackers or unauthorized personnel. In order to protect this data, any ePHI data will be sent by encrypting the data to ensure that in the event that it is intercepted it

The electronic protected health information (ePHI) gets electronically stored and collected in hard copy form as they secure the information. According to the U.S. Department of health and Human Service Office for Civil Rights (OCR) report, millions of people have been impacted by HIPAA data breaches. Hence, healthcare organizations must protect and secure personal health data now more than ever because of the threats that are associated with information. This would substantially increase the protection of healthcare from cyber threats. Moreover, these people are extremely diverse and the cleverness of their data information must be organized within hospitals. Medical records are in high demand because of the sophistication of the records.

Data privacy is vital to healthcare organizations and the health information they store. Johns (YEAR) defines data security as “a collection of protection measures and practices that safeguard data, computers, and associated resources from undesired occurrences and exposures” (p. 207). To protect their information, organizations must develop a data security program to meet the needs of Health Information Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA), stakeholders, and the business’s needs. Additionally following the guidelines set by HIPAA is key to being in compliance with the law. These programs differ depending on the organizations that are required to establish them, however, they all follow the same steps in creating and implementing this program

The technical recommendation for addressing the security requirements in ABC Healthcare network needs a set of controls which include, access controls, audit controls and integrity controls. Access and audit controls ensure how healthcare professionals and other employees access sensitive data such as Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI), and the process of authentication. Personnel are often targets of social engineering attacks that potentially could result to security breaches and attacks; therefore, it is essential to provide adequate security awareness training to all new hires, as well as refresher training to current employees on a yearly basis. Ensuring personnel have an understanding of sensitive information, common security risks, and basic steps to prevent security breaches can develop habits that would make them less susceptible to social engineering attacks.

In addition to legal support, standards have been implemented to assist with health information security. For instance, the ISO/IEC 27002 is a standard that was created in the mid 1990’s to provide theory and recommended techniques for dealing with information security. Furthermore, the ISO 27799 supplements the ISO/IEC 27002 by providing more detailed guidance that has been customized for the healthcare industry. According to Fernández-Alemán, Señor, Lozoya, & Toval, the ISO 27799 standard “provides clear, concise and healthcare-specific guidance on the selection and implementation of security controls for the protection of health information, and is adaptable to the wide range of sizes, locations, and service delivery models found in healthcare.” Thus, it would appear that

Privacy of health information has become an area of emphasis across the healthcare industry. It is important to understand what data is protected under federal regulations, how it can be shared, and how to prevent any accidental exposure of protected data. It is possible that data that should be protected can be exposed without anyone even realizing a violation has occurred. Exposure of protected healthcare data can result in medical identity theft and is therefore a very important and hot topic. The security and privacy of healthcare data is necessary to ensure consumer confidence in the healthcare industry and to prevent medical identity theft.

In the current era of digitization, with all the data being converted from paper to electronic records, even the healthcare industry has become so dependent on technology. As hospitals are adopting electronic means for data storage, medical results, transactions and billing, utmost care is to be taken to protect a patient’s personal privacy by protecting their electronic health records, which is only possible by enhancing the security and privacy of the hospital’s network. This paper proposes certain security mechanisms for a more controlled and safer access to the healthcare provider’s network, thus being aware of every device trying to access the network and making sure only authorized devices are able to connect, with the help of measures such as, intrusion detection systems to continuously monitor the network, firewalls to ensure endpoint devices comply with security policies and biometrics for identity based network access control.

In today’s society, medical records becomes a huge issue. In many organizations such as healthcare, patient confidentiality becomes a high concern. Having internet health services, creates a challenge for compliance in healthcare. Providers have treated application security and infrastructure security independently until now. Access must be secured for clinical applications to alleviate the concern from providers in healthcare. Therefore, IT infrastructure must be protected from hackers, misusing information as well as thieves. (FairWarning, n.d.)

In light of available security measures and their widespread acceptance within the information security community, there is no excuse for healthcare organizations to fail in fulfilling their duty to protect personal patient information. Guaranteeing the confidentiality and privacy of data in healthcare information is crucial in safeguarding the data of patients as there should be a legal responsibility to protect medical records from unauthorized access.

This research article examines the security concerns of using mobile technology systems in health care institution. Various methods of ensuring privacy and security of patient’s electronic medical information are addressed. This high quality article is relevant for present day mobile security issues. The authors utilize a host of credible references in the health care and information technology fields.

The rapid changes in technology over the past few decades has left the healthcare industry ill-prepared to operate in today’s environment. Most substantial protections of sensitive consumer information has come as a result of federal regulation, most notably in 1996 with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Protection of information in the healthcare industry has lagged behind all other industries, perhaps because the records aren’t financial in nature or sensitive government information. Implementing simple steps for many organizations may be enough to limit the vast majority of breaches, although a layered, comprehensive security approach should be the ultimate goal for companies.