Managing Information Risks in Healthcare

Topic: Health Tech
Words: 300 Pages: 1

The development of technology has made social media presence an inevitable business strategy across all industries. Therefore, sharing information has become easier and faster, increasing the chances of exposing patients’ data. My organization has an effective security rule that prevents practitioners from sharing patients’ information. This rule ensures data breach does not occur since it is a violation under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (Kruse et al., 2017). HIPAA legislation limits the access of patients’ information to authorized individuals only. Other methods to manage information risks include expert training, electronic health records (EHR), and data encryption.

I work in a hospice institution that applies many security strategies to protect the patient’s data. The first rule in data protection is experts training, which aligns with the pillars of data security under HIPAA (Lv & Qiao, 2020). To implement this rule, all staff must attend free training on operating various applications such as Microsoft and computer technology systems to help them avoid exposing confidential data (Lv & Qiao, 2020). This security strategy makes the institution protect its database from hackers or fraudsters.

The second strategy is the use of EHR, which helps in reporting and surveillance. This technology enables sharing of data limited to authorized persons (Califano, 2017). In addition, the system reports any data leakage during transmission, which can sometimes happen accidentally. By registering data leakage, experts can abort the process to avoid sending data to the wrong recipient. Lastly, the institution uses encryption, which is necessary for blocking unwanted access. Data encryption ensures that information is inaccessible without a unique decryption key which limits unauthorized transmission. Individuals with the decryption key can decode the information and understand the content (Califano, 2017). This requirement helps keep all data safe and enhances confidentiality which is vital in healthcare delivery.

References

Califano, L. (2017). The Electronic Health Record (EHR): Legal framework and issues about personal data protection. Pharmaceuticals Policy and Law, 19(3-4), 141-159.

Kruse, C. S., Smith, B., Vanderlinden, H., & Nealand, A. (2017). Security techniques for electronic health records. Journal of Medical Systems, 41(8), 1-9. Web.

Lv, Z., & Qiao, L. (2020). Analysis of healthcare big data. Future Generation Computer Systems, 109, 103-110. Web.