Ways That You Can Make Your Private Medical Practice More Secure
Posted on: 29 June 2016
When you are in the medical field, there are many different factors that you will need to consider, both as a medical practitioner and as a person in business for themselves. While it can be difficult to manage all of these different aspects of your private medical practice, it is important to keep certain aspects at the forefront of everything that you do. One of those aspects is security. As a physician, you are privy to a great deal of private information that should not and legally cannot leave your possession. Get to know some of the ways that you can make this data more secure in your practice so that you do not suffer from data breaches and HIPAA privacy violations now or in the future.
Consider Switching to a Cloud-Based Record Keeping System
One of the common misconceptions about the cloud is that it is somehow less secure than in-house (private) electronic medical record systems. However, this is actually inaccurate. Those private or in-house systems require you and your staff to constantly monitor security, firewalls, update and upgrade virus software, and the like. And if you are still using paper records, there is also the issue of physical security to worry about (locks being picked and file cabinet broken into).
There is a great deal of room for error and security breaches in private systems as you and your staff are not IT experts. On the other hand, cloud data storage is designed and managed by IT experts. You will get the benefits of 24-hour security and data monitoring, assistance if you ever experience problems, and the highest levels of system security to prevent hacks and breaches.
Make Sure You Have High-Quality Data Masking Services
Whether or not you opt to move to a cloud-based system, you want to make sure all of your medical records, patient information, and data is as secure as possible. For this to happen, you need data masking services.
Data masking is a form of data encryption that can keep your HIPAA protected information secure and only accessible to people who are given allowed access. When your data is masked, it means that if a person tries to access it who has not been given permission, they will not see the actual information. They may instead see a random sequence of letters and numbers that are nonsensical. The better the data masking, the less likely they will be able to crack the encryption system.
This process can also involve anonymizing your patients' protected health information. This means that the health information has been separated from identifying information that could link it to a specific person. This can further mask the data you keep and use to prevent the unintentional sharing of data. If you work with a professional data masking service, like Info Incognito, you can be sure that you get the highest level of encryption that is updated as needed and will keep your patients' identities safe and private.
Now that you know a few of the ways that you can make your private medical practice more secure, you can make the necessary adjustments as soon as possible.
Share