Data protection in the health sector is not an easy process. Healthcare providers and their partners must balance maintaining patient privacy. While providing quality patient care and meeting stringent regulatory requirements.
Medical records: perfect targets for criminal activity
As we move further and further into the digital age, the presence of electronic medical records is continually growing. Becoming the perfect targets for criminal activity.
So many organizations fail to shore up their computer networks or apply the latest security best practices. That hackers from anywhere in the world with Internet access can penetrate your systems with relative ease.
But how to do it?
Tips for protecting private health data
- Training of health personnel
- Restrict access to data and applications.
- Implementation of data usage controls
- Encrypt data
- Keep mobile devices safe
- Mitigate the risks of connected devices
- Conduct periodic evaluations
- Use off-site data backup systems
- Carefully assess the compatibility of business partners.
WHAT ELSE TO DO?
1. Use up-to-date electronic medical record software
The software developer must follow industry best practices and be aware of the growing arsenal of software tools available to hackers to penetrate systems and steal confidential information.
2. Access control
The fewer people who are authorized to enter or read data about a particular patient, the less chance of a breach occurring. Management will periodically audit the system to see who accessed and when, to ensure that this sensitive information remains confidential.
Data protection in Mexico
To avoid being entitled to sanctions by the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) and comply with the provisions of the Personal Data Protection Law. It is important to implement the administrative, physical and technological security measures necessary to handle this data, either physically or digitally, in order to prevent your security from being violated, for example:
- Use legal software that encrypts data to prevent it from being stolen.
- Dispose of confidential information safely: Erase hard drives or telephone sets that are going to be discarded.
- Shred paper files with a shredder instead of just throwing them away.
ARCO rights
If the data is stored physically, ensure that the archivists have a key or padlock and control who has access to this information.
Likewise, health professionals must make their ARCO rights available to their patients (access, rectification, cancellation or opposition). This is to ensure that, if a patient wishes to modify their data in whole or in part, or even request who owns their data to be returned or deleted, it is possible to do so easily and respond in a timely manner.
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