Healthcare Sensitive Information: Today’s Compliance Risks

Since the start of the pandemic, our healthcare industry has seen a shift towards telehealth and phone consultations. This has increased the risks for data breaches and general risks on how medical records are shared across employees.  

Earning and keeping patients’ trust is essential, and the reputational risk is enormous. Patient data is under assault from a wide array of threats including external attacks, internal attacks, and inadvertent leakage. 

A comprehensive approach to data governance and compliance is required to help prevent incidents that could disrupt patient care, process, and trust.  

Patient data privacy is a non-negotiable expectation. 

Compliance – the gap in protecting and governing healthcare data 

You can have all the threat protection, telemetry, and insights in place to protect and govern your data, but if you’re not meeting compliance requirements it’s all for none. Compliance shifts it more towards empowering the user to make sure they know what they’re doing is safe, so we don’t get to the point where security controls are required. The good news is we are seeing this cultural change happening today within the health industry.  

Human error 

One of the challenges of being the custodians of sensitive data is its high value on the dark web. According to The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, there were 446 data breach notifications from January to June 2021. Health stands out as responsible for 19% of these. A significant amount of these breaches is due to human error. Things like emailing the wrong person, storing data in the wrong place, and accessing personal information that they’re not entitled to. There needs to be awareness across all departments on what their critical data assets are and what are their obligations to meet compliance requirements.  

Legacy equipment 

In health, we are sometimes dealing with legacy equipment such as X-Ray or ultrasound machines. A common challenge is figuring out how to transfer data securely from a machine that is over ten years old. Technology and Cyber security need to be coupled tightly.  

Microsoft – bridging the gap 

A key challenge within the healthcare industry is meeting compliance across the whole digital data estate. Microsoft compliance solutions across data and risks, can help with a standardised approach across your digital data estate. You can set a standard practice that you can score and attest to how you’re complying and highlight where the gaps are. You can also run a report which is handy with the auditing process. An audit can be time-consuming, however, if you have a report ready on hand as evidence, it makes life a lot easier. 

Your data and risks compliance journey starts here 

Join us for our fourth episode of the Microsoft data governance, risks and compliance and security webinar series. Our expert panel will discuss data lifecycle, privacy, and compliance risks in the healthcare industry. They share common challenges and tips on how to get started or continue your data and risks compliance journey. Hear real-life examples of how Microsoft 365 E5 can help the healthcare industry in building awareness, skills and trust while avoiding risks.