News About Missing Or Stolen Information

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

Some include administrative, physical and technical safeguards. In administrative safeguards it allows the reader to understand the security management process to reduce risk and vulnerabilities. Security personnel responsible for developing and implementing security policies. Information access management minimum access to perform duties. Physical safeguard is about the limit of physical access to facilities, and how workstation and device security policies and procedure covering transfer, removal, disposal, and reuse of electronic media. Finally, technical safeguard is about the access control that restricts access to authorized personnel’s. Audit controls for hardware, software, and transitions. Integrity controls to ensure data is not altered or destroyed. Transmissions security to protect against un authorized access to data transmitted on network and via email. Moreover, there are three pillars of data security confidentiality, availability, and integrity. Confidentiality refers to the prevention of data loss, and is the category most easily identified with HIPAA privacy and security within healthcare environments. Usernames, passwords, and encryption are common measures implemented to ensure confidentiality. Availability refers to system and network accessibility, and often focuses on power loss or network connectivity outages. Integrity describes the trustworthiness and permanence of data, an assurance that the lab results or personal medical history of a patient is not modifiable by unauthorized entities or corrupted by a poorly designed process. Database best practices, data loss solutions, and data backup and archival tools are implemented to prevent data manipulation, corruption, or loss; thereby maintaining the integrity of patient

With growing scrutiny in healthcare and a record number of breaches increasing at an alarming rate, healthcare organizations are taking preventive measures in order to avoid breaches and possible fines. However, healthcare organizations are confused on what measures they need to take in order to protect healthcare information

The electronic protected health information (ePHI) gets electronically stored and collected in hard copy form as they secure the information. According to the U.S. Department of health and Human Service Office for Civil Rights (OCR) report, millions of people have been impacted by HIPAA data breaches. Hence, healthcare organizations must protect and secure personal health data now more than ever because of the threats that are associated with information. This would substantially increase the protection of healthcare from cyber threats. Moreover, these people are extremely diverse and the cleverness of their data information must be organized within hospitals. Medical records are in high demand because of the sophistication of the records.

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.

When dealing with electronic health care information, the United States federal government has acknowledged that there is a need to protect the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of that information. This need has been codified within the Code of Federal Regulations as the Health Insurance Reform: Security Standards of 2003, part of the overall Security Rule contained in the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Although the federal rules detail the need for the protection of health information, Professor Fue and Professor Blum in 2013 extended the need to ensure that security is built into other systems that affect individual’s health (Fue & Blum, 2013). Although there is no explicit requirement for architecture called out in Fue & Blum’s analysis, architecture is a necessary requirement to ensure the existence of the level of security needed by these systems affecting individuals’ health.

     Abstract:  Electronic medical databases and the ability to store medical files in them have made our lives easier in many ways and riskier in others.  The main risk they pose is the safety of our personal data if put on an insecure an insecure medium.  What if someone gets their hands on your information and uses it in ways you don't approve of? Can you stop them?  To keep your information safe and to preserve faith in this invaluable technology, the issue of access must be addressed.  Guidelines are needed to establish who has access and how they may get it.  This is necessary for the security of the information a, to preserve privacy, and to maintain existing benefits.

The potential vulnerabilities within a Health Delivery Organizations (HDOs) are numerous. The impact of exploitation of the can be enormous. It’s not only that the information will be damaged, stolen, or misused; the actual or implied theft of improperly protected electronic data can result in extortion threats. The cost and distraction of a hacker’s extortion demand that threatens to shut down an entity’s system or to expose confidential information can be significant. In addition to the direct costs related to the extortion demand, a facility can have major expenses, including those for the required notification of patients related to the real or threatened release of their identity information. Many states require companies to notify all of their customers if a breach is even suspected. The potential for exploitation does not stop there. Consider any of the following scenarios, note that some do not even require access to personal information, a hacker just needs to get access:

As we know in today’s society it’s becoming extremely challenging to secure critical information. It is vitally important that every medical professional takes responsibility in ensuring that the patient’s condition and information is held in the strictest of confidence. A review of the deficiencies that yield security breaches can be addressed by the following measures: The computer systems have a fail-safe component whereas the system shuts off after two minutes of inactivity. Additionally, there should be layers of sign-on passwords to ensure exclusivity this should solve the on-going problem of various area of unauthorized log-on’s. Next, a point person needs to check and verify that these security protocols are adhered to, so that passwords

Every day, hospitals in the United States and around the world are working long hours in responding to emergencies, attending patients, delivering newborn babies, performing surgeries, and foremost – saving lives. Not too long ago, cyberspace has given institutions such as hospitals the tools to accumulate and file as much information and data as possible in this great space of technology, networks, and systems. Information such as patient’s information, treatments, machinery, as well as having a better way to have secure place to store them and have authorization in accessing them. However, such tools had been used as weapons by those who want to have access and possession of such critical information and control by cyber criminals, thieves, and terrorists. Unfortunately, it’s not simple to live in a world in which laws can just simply protect institutions that help save lives. Rather, hospitals have fallen as victims of cyberattacks.

In a world full of electronics it would only seem logical to have health records electronic. Not only are medical records efficient, reliable, and quick to access, new technology allow patients to access their own personal medical records with a simple to use login and password. “People are asking whether any kind of electronic records can be made safe. If one is looking for a 100% privacy guarantee, the answer is no”(Thede, 2010). At my hospital, upon every admission we ask the patient for a password for friends and family to have to have if they would like an update on the patient 's condition. We do not let visitors come up and see the patient without the patient 's consent. In doing these things, we help to ensure the safety and protection of the patient 's health information and privacy.

In light of available security measures and their widespread acceptance within the information security community, there is no excuse for healthcare organizations to fail in fulfilling their duty to protect personal patient information. Guaranteeing the confidentiality and privacy of data in healthcare information is crucial in safeguarding the data of patients as there should be a legal responsibility to protect medical records from unauthorized access.

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 policy document will purposefully define controls and corresponding security configurations for the health practitioners eligible to using information Technology in delivering their work jurisdictions (Henderson, 2009). Information security in health organization requires that employees should ensure that accurate data is available, effective data environment and integrity respectively is supposed to be enhanced. This will ensure that only the right people would access the relevant information for their consumption (Avila-Weil & Regan, 2007). Hereafter, referred to as data and information security a practice. In the policy document, all contractors and employees must be equally represented; actions must adhere to appropriate priorities and prohibitions (Kovacich, 1998).

What is information technology? Information technology is the use or study of computers systems, software, storage, networks, etc. used to transmit, retrieve, and processing data. Information technology is a data communication tool that most or all health organizations or companies use to compute information into a system. Health organization are facilities and agencies that provide health and medical information to clients. There are several different health organizations that consist of hospitals, health maintenance organization, managed care organizations, preferred provider organization, etc. The one I would like to discuss would be the hospitals. Hospitals are institutions where the sick and injured go for medical or surgical care. Hospitals are an effective health organization that utilize information’s technology. Hospitals utilize information technology to enter their integrated databases. Throughout this paper I will be discussing the requirements and components they use for their information systems, the requirements for health care information technology systems to comply with federal, state, and local laws governing patient information security. Also, how they assess the risks and affected stakeholders in the event of a system breach or failure, and recommend approaches that can be used to safeguard confidential information.