Medical data breaches continue to make the headlines these days, even though privacy legislation mandates compliance and violations are punishable with fines and/or jail time. With the average price tag of a breach costing $6.6 million, preventing a breach is critical to the success of your health care organization.
FierceHealthcare, a leading provider of daily news for health care executives, recently interviewed Andrew Lenardon of Shred-it International to tackle this topic and explore his expertise within data security.
What unique security issues face health care providers?
- Employees do not always understand or receive proper training about privacy compliance and security protection requirements.
- There is a lot of paperwork generated on a daily basis, and anything confidential (that does not need to be retained) must be destroyed in a secure manner.
- Hard drives in copiers, laptops and external storage devices can contain confidential information so they must be handled securely.
- Breaches are likely to occur due to human error or negligence
Given these variables, what can health care professionals do to minimize security risks?
- Identify the unique security challenges within your organization.
- Understand how data is handled internally and where it may be exposed to risk.
- Consider implementing a shred-all policy, so no one has to decide what is or isn’t confidential
- Make funding your organization’s compliance and security efforts a top priority.