Vulnerabilities In The Healthcare Industry

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.

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

Information security and HIPAA policies should cover all the necessary access and control measures needed to secure information system resources and deter, shield and protect the organization from security breaches. The scenario demonstrates that the organizations overall information security posture is poor. The HIPAA, remote access and retention policies within the information management division need to be addressed due to the healthcare organizations legal obligation to ensure the privacy of protected information. Security safeguards can be addressed through vigilance and the implementation logical and administrative access controls. Properly administered HIPAA Privacy and remote access policies would not only help alleviate but quickly identify 3 undocumented accounts with global remote access. HIPAA security standards require any user with access to protected health information have a documented need to

In a large service-related Healthcare organization with the staff to patient ratio approximately 1:100, there is a greater threat by technology of breaching security records. Medical records include information about ones physical and mental being. They may contain information about ones relationship with family members, sexual behavior, drug or alcohol problems and HIV status ( Burke & Weill, 2005). The confidentiality is threatened when the medical records information is put on the Internet, by use of telemedicine, and by the use of e-mail by healthcare workers. Although this is the fastest way to store and share

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.

Another downfall or disadvantage of using this software is the concerns of client’s security. Most individuals think a disadvantage would be the security vulnerability for the client’s medical records. The ultimate concern is that hackers are still out there and may steal client’s personal information and possible compromise their identity. It does not matter how many password encryptions, security features added, and firewalls are put up, hackers can get in there. However, there are also companies that specialize in security measures for the maintenance of Electronic Health Records software.

The technical recommendation for addressing the security requirements in ABC Healthcare network needs a set of controls which include, access controls, audit controls and integrity controls. Access and audit controls ensure how healthcare professionals and other employees access sensitive data such as Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI), and the process of authentication. Personnel are often targets of social engineering attacks that potentially could result to security breaches and attacks; therefore, it is essential to provide adequate security awareness training to all new hires, as well as refresher training to current employees on a yearly basis. Ensuring personnel have an understanding of sensitive information, common security risks, and basic steps to prevent security breaches can develop habits that would make them less susceptible to social engineering attacks.

In order to diminish both security and privacy risks to organizations, measures need to be taken to combat risks throughout the various stages of the threat’s life cycle. Specific processes must be implemented to identify threats, procedures to follow when the attack occurs, and finally methods to recover from the attack (Houlding, 2011).

On May 5, 2014 Premera Blue Cross, the third-largest health insurer in Washington state, announced today that the company was the target of a sophisticated cyber attack. This attack affected as many as 11 million patients across this great country. As a result of the malicious attack, attackers may have gained unauthorized access to names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, member identification numbers, bank account information and claims and clinical information. This information may have went back as far as 2002. Not only did this attack affect many unfortunate Americans, but also the Premera Blue Cross CEO Jeff Roe.

In today’s society, medical records becomes a huge issue. In many organizations such as healthcare, patient confidentiality becomes a high concern. Having internet health services, creates a challenge for compliance in healthcare. Providers have treated application security and infrastructure security independently until now. Access must be secured for clinical applications to alleviate the concern from providers in healthcare. Therefore, IT infrastructure must be protected from hackers, misusing information as well as thieves. (FairWarning, n.d.)

It is critical now more than ever, due to the lack sufficient security, to protect patient data in the healthcare industry. Therefore, in order to accomplish this goal, investigation into the possible causes of inadequate security as well as the other causes of healthcare breaches and cyber-threats must be explored. Without this analysis, patient data will continue to be compromised, which will cause devastating damage to both patients and healthcare organizations. From the extensive research on the outbreak of healthcare data breaches, the major factors that contribute to the increase of this issue were discovered. By thorough analysis of these factors, useful solutions will be developed to decrease the compromise of patient data as well as healthcare organizations implementing better security measures.

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.

The present challenges for the healthcare industry are significant. With a population that is forever aging, escalating costs, and the unsure impact of the Affordable Care Act, healthcare providers are under tremendous pressure to meet the needs of their patients while maintaining or even reducing costs. One such organization feeling this pressure is BayCare which is a leading not-for-profit health care system that connects individuals and families to a wide range of services at 13 hospitals and hundreds of other convenient locations throughout the Tampa Bay and central Florida regions. Inpatient and outpatient services include acute care, primary care, imaging, laboratory, behavioral health, home care, and wellness. With over 3,100 practicing physicians and more than 58,500 surgeries performed annually, their budget for operating room supplies exceeds $80 million annually across all facilities. Morton Plant Hospital is faced with the challenge of reducing overall operating costs without sacrificing their high standards of patient care and safety. The hospital realized that surgical waste represented a huge opportunity to address. By providing visibility to information that was otherwise hidden, a case cart system would be able to track surgical materials issued, used, and returned; including between doctors, procedures, and locations. This could help the hospital to achieve a number of objectives including: guarantying that all material issued to the OR was accounted for