Posts Tagged ‘identity’
About medical identity theft and misuse of health data – an overview
The protection of medical records is of utmost importance. A recent study by the Ponemon Institute, “American perspective on the privacy of health”, says that over 75% of respondents believe that protecting the privacy of health data is important or very important. Unfortunately, it was found that 80% of health care organizations say they have one or more data breaches, loss of health information. With the recent approval of the Economic Health and Clinical Health Information Technology (HiTech) of companies in the health sector, financial incentives for patients to transfer files online. While leading online health information can contribute to a better quality of health care in the long term, but also creates opportunities for data thieves, putting the customers, customer data and employee of the medical risk. Consequently, the law extends the return on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards for privacy and security practices for electronic transmission of medical data.
It is also exacerbated by the implementing regulations and penalties for failure to comply with requirements management and data breach notification. Health care organizations have a responsibility to understand these new laws and protect the infrastructure and security measures for the medical records and personal data of an individual, and PHI. Incurred after the Ponemon Institute for Research, “electronic health card information at risk,” the average cost of a company, a violation of medical data address is $ 211 for each record. Those companies that do not closely follow the new requirements may cause damages to $ 1,500,000. At all levels of adoption of the landscape HITECH is changing the way companies manage and protect the health of the data. To pursue investments in infrastructure to maintain safe health care is essential to maintaining a healthy economy and customer loyalty.
Unfortunately, most companies in the health sector these investments are not. The study interviewed institutions Pnemon “electronic health card information at risk”, over 60% of the field of health IT professionals believe they have sufficient means to ensure that personal health information is kept secure. Moreover, 70% say that senior management of their companies did not consider the privacy and security as a top priority. With the necessary safeguards are not applied, the largest increases exposure to identity thieves. This, in turn, can put companies at risk of data loss and the potential risk of loss of business development on the part of loyal customers. Misuse of data can lead to significantly reduced consumer confidence and, therefore, result in less revenue. As in a recent study by Javelin Research report, “Practical Data Breach best answer” 45% of rape victims are less confident in a business as a result of being the victim of a data breach.
How an organization manages a violation if it occurred, has changed the most stringent reporting requirements defined by the law of the High-Tech. Now more than ever, it is essential that the health sector to be aware of new requirements and standards.