Why Choose a Healthcare Software Development Partner with a Strong Data Security Track Record?
What is Data Security, and Why is it Critical?
Healthcare data includes sensitive data and information, such as personal data, addresses, and social security numbers, as well as confidential medical information. This data must be protected from unauthorized access, theft, or loss. Healthcare data is vulnerable to hackers as it can be resold for substantial amounts. Data security strategies can include data encryption or access control of patient records, as well as audit trails, antivirus, and malware apps, and system monitoring apps.
Without data security, patients, practitioners, and third-party organizations are at risk of hackers or loss of sensitive healthcare information. Patients have the right to know that their personal data is being protected, and organizations must be able to avoid the financial and legal consequences of a data breach. It's also important to note that accurate medical information is the basis of diagnoses and effective treatment, meaning that data that is vulnerable to tampering places patients at risk.
Healthcare-Specific Security Standards:
HIPAA
Data security standards such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA, ensure that organizations and practitioners follow a certain set of criteria to protect confidential information. HIPAA protects several different types of sensitive data elements, which include the following:
Protected Health Information (PHI), ePHI, and Personal Identifiable Information (PII). These refer to individually identifiable information that a practitioner or third-party organization can access. ePHI specifically refers to electronically processed data and is what is most commonly protected in this day and age by HIPAA security standards, mainly including electronic health records (EHRs). All types of demographic information are included in these data elements, such as patients' names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, account numbers, and medical record numbers.
Medical history and conditions are also protected by HIPAA, which includes diagnoses, treatment records, prescriptions, lab results, and imaging reports.
Finally, health organizations often store payment information, and HIPAA aims to protect this as it is highly sensitive. This could include billing records, insurance claims, bank account details, and other financial information associated with healthcare transactions.
HIPAA regulations are constantly updated, and every type of organization that works with PHI and ePHI must stay up-to-date and HIPAA compliant.
HITRUST
HITRUST, which stands for Health Information Trust Alliance, includes aspects of HIPAA, and was created by security experts, while HIPAA was created from a law standpoint. HITRUST is more of a security framework. Also known as HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF), it's a risk-based approach that provides a set of controls and requirements that organizations can implement to protect sensitive information. HITRUST was established to address the unique security and privacy challenges healthcare organizations face. The CSF covers multiple domains, such as risk assessment, access control, incident management, physical security, etc. HITRUST certification can increase trust between patients, stakeholders, and practices.
The Importance of Having a Strong Data Security Track Record Related to Healthcare Software Solutions
Data security facilitates a better relationship between healthcare providers and patients by supporting data interoperability which avoids data siloing and reduces repetitive medical testing, and enhances financial and process efficiency. It allows patients to trust their providers more fully by avoiding data breaches and for a more expedient and holistic clinical view of patients.
Avoiding financial loss is also essential, as implementing new security measures following an incident can be costly, as well as the effects of having to notify patients about a data breach.
The increased digitization of the healthcare industry following the COVID-19 pandemic also means that cyber attacks have become much more commonplace. In turn, the importance of protecting this data has also significantly increased.
There is also a large risk of Lawsuits, criminal charges, and substantial fines related to data breaches. When healthcare organizations are HIPAA compliant or protected by HITRUST there is far less of a risk of these things.
SRG and Our Strong Data Security Track Record
SRG Software is committed to supporting our customer partners with the highest level of security. We have decades of experience building and deploying HIPAA and HITRUST compliant healthcare solutions and facilitating frequent security audits and penetration testing for provider organizations and healthcare information technology product companies. When customer budgets allow, we recommend using ClearDATA managed cloud and defense services to automate compliance, mitigate risk, and proactively defend against threats.
