Skip to main content
Skip to footer
Hospitals should secure protected health information (PHI) and keep PHI secure. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, there are 907 pages of hospitals under investigation for the data breach. Most data breaches range from network servers, electronic medical records, emails, and portable electronic devices. With hospitals using bring-your-own devices (BYOD) or company-provided devices, there’s an imminent need to secure PHI even more. A data breach is severe and affects not only hospitals yet patients too. Hospitals must be aware of and equipped with secure messaging apps as data breaches increase. BYOD is convenient for healthcare providers and much easier to use over a pager. However, healthcare providers must understand BYOD security to protect EHRs and patients. Protected health information is valuable and expensive to recover, not to mention a violation of patient privacy.
The number of data breaches is concerning; within healthcare, the data is the most valuable and sensitive. With technology advancing, so are the risks; hospitals must take security seriously. According to Adil Hussain Seh et al., “Healthcare Data Breaches: Insights and Implications.” healthcare data breaches are a target by attackers and highly vulnerable, “Moreover, the cost of a breached record in the healthcare sector registered an increase of 19.4%, the highest in this time period [10–13].” (Seh et al., p. 2). Hospitals investing in a secure messaging app will not have to worry about data breaches; Amtelco Secure Messages can secure BYOD devices and provide end-to-end encryption for users. Software designed to provide optimal security and simplify healthcare providers’ workflow. For healthcare providers that use pagers, data breaches will happen and be susceptible to hacking once intercepted. Secondly, there’s an increase in hacking/IT incidents. Seh et al. stated, “692 incidents were reported in the last four years alone (2016–2019); that accounts for 81.85% of the total, among which 32.23% were reported in 2019 alone” (Seh et al., p. 9). Digitization of healthcare helped hospitals operate more conveniently in servicing patients and enabling faster communication. However, not investing in security is detrimental to hospitals and patients.
Generally, data breaches can divide into two categories, internal and external. With an internal data breach, the data will leak through the help of an internal agent. It Could be an abuse of privilege, disclosure, improper disposal of sensitive data, loss or theft, or unintentionally sharing sensitive data to an unauthorized party. External data breaches can happen to hack/IT incidents such as malware attacks, ransomware attacks, spyware, phishing, or fraud through stolen identity. To prevent the two incidents from occurring, healthcare providers with an encrypted text app can protect sensitive data from external data breaches. Amtelco Secure Messages encryption can eliminate outside access, making everything accessible to healthcare providers. However, the data is not stored on the devices. For healthcare providers, having access to information and security is a must. Since HIPAA compliance is a priority for healthcare providers, ensuring optimal security on BYOD devices is even more necessary to protect sensitive data from internal data breaches.
