IT Professionals Suggest How Healthcare Data Prote

IT Professionals Suggest How Healthcare Data Protection Can Be Enhanced

Privacy and security are crucial in any healthcare organization, whether they’re a new practice with growing volumes of records, an established one with vast volumes, or a practice that still hasn’t gone fully digital.

While technological advancements can make the lives of both patients and staff easier and ease access to care, they can also make it easier for cybercriminals to breach healthcare systems and obtain sensitive information. This raises the question, how can healthcare organizations ensure the privacy and security of patient data while managing e-health records?

Below, we look at some of the ways this can be done, as explained by different IT professionals.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ Technology & Global Information Security Officer, Flavio Villanustre, explains that security awareness among staff is crucial, with organizations needing to enforce strong multi-factor authentication in their systems to help alleviate the influence of a compromised entity.

He adds that organizations can also protect patient data through strong encryption and mature key management processes which act as a control to ensure data can’t be accessed inappropriately if it leaks.

Canvas Medical’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Hines also emphasizes the need for organizations to use reliable cybersecurity frameworks and get external validation and auditing to ensure security.

Shay Perera, the co-founder of Navina, underscores the need for organizations to adopt multi-layered defense mechanisms. Perera adds that systems used by healthcare organizations have to be secure but still flexible enough to meet the numerous demands of their environments.

James Rice, Protegrity VP of Solutions Engineering, holds a similar sentiment. He explains that enabling advanced data-centric security including anonymization and masking also ensures that sensitive data remains protected be it in use, in transit, or at rest. These privacy-enhancing methods maintain usability of sensitive health data across electronic health record systems while still protecting it.

RXNT’s Chief Technology Officer Thomas Kavukat also discusses steps organizations can take to prevent breaches in privacy and security. They include:

Converting paper bills, encounters, notes, and records to digital for more secure storage
Place limitations on patient data access based on tenure or roles, which ensures that only authorized staff can access it
Outline clear privacy and security policies for every employee, and accountability for those policies and protocols
Establish regulations to limit data usage to only what’s required
Ensure staff undertake training on HIPAA data security protocols and best practices regularly
Rhapsody’s Chief Product Officer JitinAsnaani also advises healthcare organizations to choose certified electronic health record systems that meet strict security standards.

Using cloud-based health data management systems like those established by companies like HealthLynked Corp. (OTCQB: HLYK) can also be beneficial not only in terms of securing that data but also leveraging it in ways that can enhance service delivery.

NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to HealthLynked Corp. (OTCQB: HLYK) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/HLYK

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