Understanding Health Data Security and Print Infrastructure Although printer security is often overlooked, there are several steps healthcare IT managers can take to properly secure their printer ecosystem. By Mario Doss HP For those who may not see the urgency in printer and software upgrades let me point out how the last two years have seen several high profile, costly health data security breaches from some major healthcare organizations including Anthem Healthcare, Premera Blue Cross BlueShield, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield and UCLA Health System. These examples have served to highlight the importance of Printer security for healthcare organizations and please don’t forget that the Equifax Breach was due to Software upgrades …show more content…
In addition, deploy printers with features that can provide a base layer of self-protection, such as the ability to detect and recover from an intrusion. IT organizations should also ensure that they are procuring their printers and print services from vendors that support industry standards such as Common Criteria, FIPS 140-2, HIPAA, NIST 800-53 and ISO 27001. Prevent unauthorized user access to confidential documents Documents left in the output tray present one of the most common risks associated with print security. In healthcare settings especially, these documents often contain confidential patient information that can easily be accessed, misplaced or discarded. This exposure to private patient information, financial statements, and other proprietary data puts an organization at risk of an immediate breach. Implementing a pull printing or pin printing solution can help prevent this type of unauthorized access by requiring a user to authenticate at the printer before a document starts printing. HIPAA compliance means not just preventing authorized access to patient information records, but also being able to document who has access to those records. When it comes to printing documents, an access management solution can be used to enforce IT policies about who can print what as well provide an audit trail, if needed. Implement a
Healthcare technology has grown and evolved over time. With the conversion to electronic medical records and the creation of social media just to name a few, ensuring patient privacy is of the utmost importance for healthcare facilities in this day and age. In order for an organization to avoid hefty fines, it is imperative that a healthcare administrator maintains compliance with the standards and regulations associated with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This paper will provide a summary
There are many essential features found in a heath information system that are designed to protect patient privacy. For starters, at this candidate’s organization, every login is specific to an individual nurse and the
All healthcare providers, health organizations, and government health plans that use, store, maintain, or transmit patient health care information are required to comply with the privacy regulations of the HIPAA
Discuss security standards and methods, including the need for data storage integrity and data backup and recovery. In addition to complying with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), SMC needs to be valiant in how the organization will protect information and manage network security. Information security is the protection of information against risk to its integrity, inadvertent disclosure, or availability (Hawkins, 2013a). The most common threats an organization's network will face are hackers, spyware, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and malicious insider (Hawkins, 2013a). To protect SMC from hackers, they will use firewalls and intrusion-detection devices. Firewalls protect network systems by obstructing unauthorized entry while allowing approved communications (Hawkins, 2013a). Intrusion-detection systems monitor who the user is and what the user accesses. To promote HIPPA, SMC will track the last names of users who accessed patients with the same last name to reveal inappropriate use of client information.
Data privacy is a concern for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in California. Don Zimmer is a information security officer for the department that supports 18,000 desktops and laptops that operates under the restrictions of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) regulations. If the desktops and laptops are not encrypted and there is a breach then they must start calling people and inform them that patients privacy has been violated. In order to keep information from being put on movable media that can be plugged into a USB port, the department uses Safend's USB Port Protector product. As a IT department they must decide what must be protected, find out where it lives, and protect it against both inside and outside threats via encryption, multitiered security suites, or new technologies like data loss prevention (DLP). Data loss prevention protects corporate intellectual property, they can scan, internal and external connections looking for anomalies and protects data. It can also restrict access individual devices that have data. This type of protection is very effective but it does require a company to locate and classify their data in order to
Several years ago, a mandate was ordered requiring all healthcare facilities to progress from paper charting and record keeping to electronic health record (EHR). This transition to electronic formatting has pros and cons associated with it. I will be describing the EHR mandate, including who initiated it, when it was initiated, the goals of the EHR, and how the Affordable Care Act and the Obama administration are tied into it. Then I will show evidence of research and discuss the six steps of this process as well as my facilities progress with EHR. Then I will describe meaningful use and how my facility attained it. Finally, I will define HIPAA law, the possible threats to patient confidentiality relating to EHR, and how what my facility
The current system that we have is not effective for the staff and needs to be upgraded. When choosing a system for the hospital, we need to make sure it meets the privacy for our patients and is effective for our staff. When our staff is treating our patients, we need to be mindful of the placement of computers in patient rooms so staff can easily access them and bring them to a comfortable level for them to work. These computers need to have the security screen protection covers placed over them so visitors cannot see the screen as the staff is documenting. I also think we should install the fingerprint identification to allow fast and easy access to the system, so the staff is able to complete real time charting and in the event of an emergency they are not trying to type out their password and forgetting, having this device installed will also ensure that patients are not able to can access to the computer (Maksimov & Kalkis, 2016).
Medical records and medical correspondence are increasingly going digital. This has different risks than traditional paper records. Starting with HIPAA compliant software helps keep digital records safe. The IT end of things is a critical piece of the puzzle and one that can be a burden for small offices
Medical Organizations or Hospitals should manage PHI effectively by implementing policies and procedures. Persuasive training on techniques to appropriately handle and protect PHI should be given to all the employees who handle PHI. This includes access controls, risk management, work-force sanction policies, risk analysis, information system activity reviews, assigned security responsibility, and
As more healthcare information is stored and transmitted digitally, ensuring that your organization complies with the myriad of federal and state regulations is becoming increasingly difficult. As part of this digital transformation, healthcare organizations are partnering with cloud companies, data processors, and other organizations that must also comply with HIPAA business associate requirements. This has resulted in an increase in the scope of security challenges for healthcare providers and their business associates.
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).
There are a multitude of patient privacy (HIPAA) and patient information concerns related to the use of technology in medical care. Selection of the proper hardware, operating systems and system software make the compliance with and documentation in support of these regulations far easier.
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.