Making certain top quality affected person care is the highest precedence for healthcare suppliers. Because of this, hospitals and personal practices intention to optimize the affected person expertise by working as effectively as potential.
That mentioned, because it pertains to e-mail exchanges, organizations would possibly unknowingly sacrifice one other factor of the affected person expertise: safety. Though healthcare suppliers is likely to be sending HIPAA compliant emails, they can not totally eradicate components exterior their management. Nevertheless, by recognizing the hole between HIPAA compliance and full e-mail safety, together with defending themselves from safety threats, healthcare organizations can determine potential points and implement methods to maintain protected well being info (PHI) protected.
HIPAA Compliance Does Not Equal Safety
Whereas healthcare corporations ought to try to realize whole HIPAA compliance, the fact is that compliance doesn’t equal safety. Threats that undermine information safety and jeopardize PHI, similar to human error and cybercriminal exercise, exist each inside and out of doors the group no matter finest efforts by suppliers. A knowledge breach can result in a HIPAA violation with a high quality of as much as $1.5M if an investigation finds that the healthcare supplier was negligent in following HIPAA pointers.
With e-mail being a high risk vector 12 months after 12 months, breaches can occur, even when a corporation is doing its finest to be HIPAA compliant. That’s as a result of HIPAA rules define what should be completed however not the “how.” Too typically this leaves it open-ended on what can be thought-about “cheap” in the case of creating safeguards for PHI, particularly technical safeguards, in the case of e-mail. That may create gaps for a lot of organizations that would not have devoted assets to make sure PHI is secured, particularly as information turns into extra digital and cloud based mostly. Extra sturdy safety frameworks like HITRUST CSF, ISO and SOC2 present higher steering for creating a robust safety posture.
In actuality, HIPAA compliance is much less about ensuring information breaches by no means occur; however extra about decreasing the danger of a breach occurring.
Having the correct insurance policies and practices in place minimizes threat and permits lined entities to react appropriately ought to there be an incident. Healthcare organizations that meet HIPAA compliance necessities, like limiting the variety of employees members with entry to PHI and encrypting their e-mail, drastically cut back the danger of a HIPAA violation.
Suppliers should vigilantly preserve abreast of potential threats for the reason that panorama is continually altering and stopping HIPAA violations depends closely on correct safety measures. Organizations that set up and preserve correct safeguards to fight e-mail safety breaches make sure the long-term well being of their practices, keep away from HIPAA fines and earn their sufferers’ belief.
Human Error Contributes to Healthcare Breaches
A sure-fire option to lose affected person belief is by falling sufferer to a risk by human error. Sending unencrypted e-mail, unintentionally sharing PHI with an unintended recipient or falling for a phishing e-mail are all avoidable errors. Whereas organizations historically concentrate on eliminating exterior threats, human error might be simply as harmful. Healthcare professionals attempt to forestall unauthorized entry to PHI. Nonetheless, the fast-paced and high-stress nature of the business cultivates an setting that leaves organizations uncovered to e-mail or community safety breaches, even from the within.
In an try to cut back human error, the HIPAA Privateness Rule requires healthcare organizations to adequately practice workers and preserve strict insurance policies to safe affected person info. Whereas distinctive to every healthcare group, these insurance policies typically concentrate on cellular machine utilization, credential sharing and the power to acknowledge and block malicious emails. Regardless of correct organizational coaching and insurance policies, breaches attributable to human error can — and can — nonetheless happen. In truth, human error accounted for almost 30% of healthcare breaches in 2020 alone.
Cybercriminals Pose a Rising Existential Menace
In distinction, cybercriminals symbolize exterior threats to affected person information. The Covid-19 pandemic supplied a super state of affairs for hackers to steal sufferers’ digital well being data after which demand ransoms for his or her protected return. Crowded hospitals have stretched healthcare workers skinny. They’ve been required to adapt to new and unfamiliar expertise, or they may have began counting on e-mail greater than ever earlier than to take care of affected person care. With out an easy-to-use HIPAA compliant e-mail answer that protects inboxes from malicious messages, this will result in profitable phishing assaults and malware infections. Sadly, profitable assaults are a every day incidence.
An increase in distant work has created extra dangers as improperly secured distant networks can allow cybercriminals to steal affected person info swiftly and secretly. Ransomware, specifically, has grow to be an existential risk as victims find yourself needing to spend cash to get well PHI, pay fines and restore their broken reputations. A current IBM study discovered that the common breach prices a corporation $$4.24 million. Regardless of the necessity to preserve unhealthy actors at bay, organizations typically fail to determine a watertight safety protection due to the consistently altering safety panorama.
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In e-mail particularly, not correctly securing inbound and outbound messages opens the door for cybercriminals to steal precious affected person info. And as expertise advances additional, so will their strategies.
Methods to Improve Safety
Healthcare professionals must do all they’ll to forestall cybercriminals from stealing affected person information. But securing your methods from inside and exterior threats can really feel like a unending battle. When one weak point is resolved, one other one arises.
Nevertheless, there’s a lot that lined entities can do to mitigate threat. A resilient cybersecurity technique requires a broad strategy that encompasses a number of components, together with:
- Well timed and steady coaching to make sure your employees has the correct information to keep away from human error
- Updating insurance policies to make sure your group is maintaining with the business normal
- Adopting new applied sciences to take away the human factor wherever potential
- Securing each inbound and outbound e-mail to keep away from sending unencrypted PHI and to forestall profitable e-mail hacks
- Using safe password insurance policies to maintain unhealthy actors at bay
- Patching and updating networks to cowl new safety holes as they happen
- Rising cloud community safety so workers can safely work remotely
A significant a part of your e-mail safety technique is e-mail encryption. It should be a part of your healthcare cybersecurity sport plan. Below HIPAA, encryption is an “addressable” option to safe e-mail quite than being required. Nevertheless, since there is no such thing as a different efficient methodology to safe e-mail moreover encryption, it’s de facto a requirement. If you happen to think about a safety breach a big situation (as you must), e-mail encryption — particularly when emails embody PHI — is a should.
Partnering with a HITRUST CSF certified e-mail safety supplier is among the most secure methods to guard PHI because it demonstrates an organization’s dedication to healthcare information safety. An e-mail safety platform ought to allow blanket encryption each in transit and at relaxation. Encryption gained’t seal off each alternative for a knowledge breach, however it’ll forestall unauthorized customers from accessing info shared by way of e-mail, together with PHI. One of the best inbound e-mail safety options will keep away from the danger of human error by blocking malicious messages from even getting into the inbox, being proactive versus reactive like most spam filtering options
With out sustaining HIPAA compliance and implementing efficient methods to fight threats to PHI, healthcare organizations can’t shield affected person information. Healthcare suppliers should do their half to supply optimized affected person experiences whereas concurrently creating an setting that secures PHI within the course of.
Picture: Ildo Frazao, Getty Photographs
