Information Security Trends And Data Breach Of Health Care Services

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

Although the discussion focuses on the risk manager, most large health care organizations employ a team of individuals to reduce the risks of loss and increase patient safety from both a proactive and reactive stance. The health care environment is constantly evolving, but nothing has made change as pervasive as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the regulatory and compliance mandates contained within its wording. For instance, maintaining confidentiality of patient information, a key function of risk management, is now more difficult with the rise of cybercrime of medical information. According to Finkle (2014), the Federal Bureau of Investigation warns health care providers there is high demand for medical information by criminals to commit both impersonation crimes and financial fraud. These concerns were unheard of not long ago. Confidentiality and protection of patient information is only

Hospital and health facility administrators face hardened criminals who hack medical records with ever-increasing sophistication. Hackers gain access to critical information, such as medical claims, financial data, Social Security numbers and credit card data that enable identity theft, credit card fraud and other privacy breaches. One of the major security failures in the news was the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield attack that exposed 1.1 million of its members to thefts of their personal information.[1] Combined with high-profile breaches at Anthem and Premera Blue Cross, the breach illustrates the changing role of medical administrators

Data security is used to prevent anything that is unauthorized, and it helps to protect all of the data from any corruption. Almost daily, media reports highlight the failure of health care organizations to safeguard the privacy and security of patient data, whether electronic or paper. Preventing data breaches has become more complex, and at the same time, the fines being levied against health care organizations for violating the Health Insurance, (Zamosky, 2014).# In this paper, I will discuss the security measures, how the security measures used and how well did the security measure work.

On February, 8, 2011, Ortho Montana, PSC, a healthcare provider submitted a data breach which affected thirty seven thousand people. The type of breach described was ‘Theft’ and information was breached from Laptop. The exact description included in the web description states a laptop which had electronic unsecured protected health information was either lost or stolen. This took place when the laptop was taken to an event by a workforce member.

Last week it was reported that 500 patient records had been compromised. Our IT Security department has done an extensive audit and concluded that there are many issues with our security system regarding the protection of our patient’s privacy. Outlined below are some issues that were found and how they are going to be addressed going forward.

This paper will discuss the various threats and vulnerabilities related to the United States healthcare system as well as government regulations and policies as well as the issues of overall personal data security as a whole. Threat assessment in regards to a cyber- attack and the level of liability in the aftermath of a cyber-attack will also be discussed. In addition to the implementation of future protocols regarding personal identifiable information to reduce the sheer number of vulnerabilities, prevent data theft as a result of future attempts at cyber-attacks.

Working in the medical field with Electronic Health Records, a lot of my responsibilities are reliant on Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPPA) compliance, EHR updates and template building. EHR breaches in security is a constant concern in this age of modern and sophisticated technology. With recent security breaches of major corporations, this has caused technology experts to heighten its security encryptions to prevent further breaches. The increasing concern over the security of health information stems from the rise of EHRs, increased use of mobile devices such as the smartphone, medical identity theft, and the widely anticipated exchange of data between and among organizations, clinicians, federal agencies, and patients. If patients’ trust is undermined, they may not be forthright with the physician. For the patient to trust the clinician, records in the office must be protected. Having the knowledge of how these security breaches are on the rise increases my awareness on the security protection of the health records.

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.

With the introduction of computers and the internet opens limitless possibilities for the world to become so much more interconnected and interactive. However, that same limitless potential is both a blessing and a curse. The open internet is a system that allows for unlimited access to almost any sort of information. That same openness makes security for one’s self difficult and there isn’t anyone who is completely secure. The introduction of the internet for broad use and public consumption also came with the federal government’s attempts to prevent the theft of personal information. In the late 1990s, President Bill Clinton signed into law two provisions to protect copyright and affordability of healthcare: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. In 2011, a bill was introduced into the United States House of Representatives called the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Obviously the DMCA and SOPA have much more in common as they deal with copyright infringement. As such, they also have a profound impact on information security. HIPAA is important as well as it keeps confidential information like medical records to only be accessed by patients and medical professionals. All three of them touched on an important subject, information security, that warrants the

Security breaches of EMRs vary from someone without consent viewing the patient’s information, to a hacker using the information to steal one’s identity. According to Privacy Rights Clearing House, more than 260 million data breaches have occurred in the United States, including those of health related records. Approximately 12 percent of data breaches involve medical organizations (Gellman, 2012). According to Redspin, a provider of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act risk analysis and IT security assessment services, more than 6 million individual’s health records were compromised during a period from August 2009 and December 2010 (Author Unknown, 2010). A provision of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act requires all breaches affecting 500 or more people to be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services. This reporting is to be accomplished within 60 days of discovery. The Redspin report covering the period above involved 225 breaches of protected health information. The amount of people with access to an individual’s health record creates concern with confidentiality. According to the Los Angeles

Medical identify theft is the biggest challenges face by both health care organization and patient. It is the practice in which someone uses another individual’s identifying information such as health insurance information, SSN, address, phone number and other personal information without individual knowledge or permission to obtain medial services, goods or to obtain money by falsifying claims for medical service and falsifying medical records to support those claims ( Mancini, 2014). Healthcare organization, Providers, insurance payers and patient are negatively affect by the medical identity theft. Among them, Patient are the biggest victims because they are the one who will receive unwanted treatment and medication which may be life threatening,

In today’s age of healthcare, health informatic innovations such as the health information exchange have allowed electronically available healthcare data, such as clinical, administrative, and financial information, to be shared within healthcare systems, hospital networks, and other healthcare settings. As organizations begin to share sensitive information across political, geographical, and institutional boundaries, there is a constant risk of patient data being compromised. Therefore, close attention must be given to confronting the specific problems resulting in an increase in healthcare data breaches, as well as determining the appropriate solutions in order for healthcare organizations to protect sensitive patient data.

Information security and privacy is occupying a most important role in the healthcare territory in order to deliver protected information process to their patients (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). As healthcare department is the organization with vast data and essential information the hospitals has to keep a useful information security technique in their enterprise process (Mishra et al., 2011). Information security is one such phase in the healthcare sphere which is extremely problematic to describe and evaluate even to the individuals who are working on the process. In the healthcare organization, information is of many types which required for the work and even the security is a main control for almost all the practices which are transmitted out in the healthcare field (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). Hospitals, in specific, have been instructed to create a new set of security specialists to protect healthcare data tools techniques upon which exists may rely. Healthcare data is very critical for patients because it is very confidential records. If a medical apparatus is filled with a computer virus it can even exemplify a possibility to patients ' lives. Hence, hospitals should design alertness of the risk, to defend against concerns to healthcare databanks and be concerned about the high risk of infected computers or medical tools being connected to their networks (Mishra et al., 2011).

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.