Are electronic medical records worth it?

The use of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) by medical professionals has increased dramatically. According to HealthIT.gov, 2015 statistics show that 56 percent of all U.S. office-based physicians (MD/DO) have demonstrated meaningful use of electronic health records. The downside of these statistics is that when HIPAA was enacted in 1996, privacy was not a major focus and it actually took HHS eight years to publish the initial HIPAA Privacy Rule. It then took the agency several more years to publish initial security rules which directed “covered entities” (e.g., providers, hospitals, health insurers) to perform a risk assessment, understand where their vulnerabilities were, and to adopt reasonable safeguards to fix them.

Unfortunately this timeline has made healthcare records easy pickings for cybercriminals. Since 2010, incidents of medical identity theft have doubled, according to a survey conducted by the privacy-focused Ponemon Institute. A second report by the Identity Theft Resource Center on breaches in the first four months of 2015 showed that one-third of all data breaches by industry occurred in healthcare: 82 instances in total, exposing over 1.7 million records. Modern Healthcare, in fact, estimated that the medical records of almost one in eight Americans have been compromised. The American Action Forum estimates that all the breaches since 2009 have cost the healthcare system $50.6 billion. Data breaches have been so bad that Blue Cross Blue Shield has announced that they will offer their customers identity protection in 2016.

Is EMR worth the cost in privacy and peace of mind?

Can this problem be fixed?

• Protect the network – Health IT departments need to use a variety of tools to keep attackers out and move faster towards the adoption of technologies that limit the damage when attacks do occur.
• Educate staff members – Employees are often involved in healthcare data breaches so any IT security program should include a big focus on employee education.
• Encrypt portable devices – Several data breaches have involved the use of portable computing or storage devices that contained protected health information. Healthcare organizations should always encrypt data on any device that might hold patient data, including laptops, smartphones, tablets and portable USB drives.
• Secure wireless networks – Wireless networks often introduce security vulnerabilities. To protect against attacks, healthcare providers should ensure that their routers and other components are kept up-to-date, network passwords are secure and changed frequently, and unauthorized devices are blocked from accessing the network.
• Implement physical security controls – Even as electronic health records become more common, organizations still keep a lot of sensitive data on paper. Providers must therefore make sure doors and file cabinets are locked and that cameras and other physical security controls are used.
• Create and enforce a mobile device policy – A mobile device policy that governs what data can be stored on those assets is imperative. Mobile device management (MDM) software to enforce those policies should also be deployed.
• Delete unnecessary data – The more data that’s held by an organization, the larger the risk of loss. Organizations should have policies that mandate the deletion of patient and other information that’s no longer needed.
• Vet the security of cloud-based services – The biggest IT trend over recent years has been the use of cloud computing. The use of cloud-based services increases the importance for organizations to diligently vet the security of these vendors and other involved third parties.
• Patch electronic medical devices – Keep the software on all medical devices patched and up-to-date to minimize their vulnerabilities.
• Have a data breach response plan – Despite the precautions, organizations will never be able to prevent every possible IT security incident. That’s why it’s critical to develop a plan of action for when a breach does occur.

• Manage and govern user identity, privilege and access
• Secure networks with deep protection and control
• Routinely update and manage application updates
• Manage and secures all endpoints
• Data protection policies that encrypt both at rest and in motion.

This post was written as part of the Dell Insight Partners program, which provides news and analysis about the evolving world of tech. Dell sponsored this article, but the opinions are my own and don’t necessarily represent Dell’s positions or strategies.

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