Most don’t consider the ramifications of a confidential data breach until we are forced to actively deal with one. In the healthcare industry, an out of sight / out of mind approach is simply unacceptable.
The good news is that you can take a proactive approach to protecting your patients’ private medical information. This, without consuming many resources or incurring large costs.
Cybersecurity Data Most Ignored in Medical Practice
Human error
Carefully train yourself and your staff. While difficult to admit, the human element is often the weakest link in the data security chain. The team should already have a staff training program under cybersecurity guidelines. But it must be reviewed and updated.
Doctors and clinic staff who are not trained in the latest security protocols can inadvertently cause cybersecurity breaches. Spending a little time and / or resources now updating the training process could easily save you an exponential amount of money down the road.
Outdated or unpatched software
Get over your fear of updates (or your fear of asking YOU to apply them). Regardless of how they may affect other programs or office workflow. Patches software ‘Critical’ and ‘Security’ and firmware updates must be applied to absolutely all network hardware, operating systems and software.
Lack of recent backups
Make a backup, then a backup of the backup. When healthcare practice managers and medical IT professionals are asked if they are backing up critical systems and data. The answer is a proud “YES”.
Unfortunately, the answers get confusing when you start talking about backup encryption, backup data testing. As well as off-site backups, use of the cloud, and data recovery plans. It is no longer enough to have a data backup, or even redundant backups.
Poor password policy
Stop using the same passwords.
This should be a no-brainer though, as we’re all just humans and since most of us have a limited ability to remember multiple complex passwords, it’s easy to neglect it. Anyone in any facet of healthcare with access to systems that store and access PHI must have unique passwords for individual systems.
All those passwords should be changed regularly.
Ignorance of vulnerability
You should check for vulnerabilities regularly. Discovering a potential vulnerability in the data security layers can be scary and potentially costly to resolve.
Because of this, most organizations don’t actively look for cracks in their cybersecurity armor enough. For caregiver organizations, this approach is really dangerous. Clinics, offices, and hospitals are so full of changes in personnel, protocols, standards, and regulations that vulnerabilities can easily occur without being overt.
By making a regular plan to review data protection, you are more likely to find holes and lessen liability.
Unencrypted data and / or bloated data surface area
Finally, the data must be minimized and encrypted at rest or in transmission. Unencrypted data in use should be used only when necessary and strictly protected.
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Regional Hospital Lic. Adolfo López Mateos; certified by the General Health Council