Medical Record Breaches Mentor

MedicalRecord Breaches

Mentor:

MedicalRecord Breaches

Thehealth sector has become one of the most important divisions in worldeconomies due to its primary goal of ensuring a disease-freepopulation. The sector has a lot of challenges that relate tospecific stakeholders who are patients, medics, governments or aidagencies, both national and international. Patients` possibility ofgetting best quality services significantly depend on the handling ofrecords in the facilities. There have been discussions surroundingviolation of universal principles that touch on health records, whichpose a potential threat to the medical sector. Some journals andarticles exist, seeking to expose and possibly redress some of thesecontraventions. Therefore, the essay aims to assess the journals andarticles that reveal the actual issues in health records breach.

Accordingto Dr. Nayer Jamshed, providing patients` information to anotherparty without their approval is an infringement of health data,unless a legal entity has directed so. Such information should not bein a format that is accessible and downloadable to third parties.There may also arise, a problem when the system in use is not asefficient as to allow only users of certain information on variousinterfaces, lest there will be a looming headache of data inaccuracydue to data alteration. The writer cites four areas of concern, thatis, patient confidentiality, electronic health records, paper recordsand security infractions (Nayer, 2015).

HIPAAJournal, on the other hand, highlights cyber-attack as the greatestthreat to medical records. It reports that in a phishing attack inJanuary 2017, Washington University School of Medicine saw a hugenumber of its staff compromised and that attack impacted eightythousand patients (Donald, 2016).

Accordingto another article on the United States, American MedicalAssociation, security breaching as a result of hacking has increasedalmost twice recently. Besides, theft has also occurred throughsimple grabbing of laptops, tablets, or computers. It further reportsthat one of the major consequences of hacking is the rising theft ofunsecured electronic data, leading to increasing cases of compromiseddata (Dennis,2015).The states that have suffered most from the data breach includeIllinois, New York City, Texas, Florida and California.

Thereport further shows that during the same time and place, more thansixty percent of health infringements were done through electronicmedia while only about twenty percent occurred through paper records.The most recent attack or hacking hit both Premera Blue Cross andInsurance companies Anthem Inc., which exposed about one hundredthousand records to criminals (Dennis,2015).

Ananalysis of these articles shows the common problems that the healthsector experience around the world. Since they significantly touchedon the security of health data, there is a need to establish variousways to get rid of this risk that can take this vital sector to itsknees. There should be periodic analyses of security risks, givingrecommendations that enhance IT infrastructure. Besides, health careproviders should embrace encryption of data stored on all devices,portable or non-portable to boost data security.

Conclusively,health records breach issues require that, penetration testing andthe assessment of the vulnerability should be conducted morefrequently. For all the vulnerabilities that could be ongoing,consider rescanning and remediation. Many a time, cyber criminalstarget forging and stealing prescriptions, insurance details with thepurpose of fraudulently siphoning money from insurance firms, and theidentity fraud. Additionally, medical services should continuouslyprovide the current HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability andAccountability) to the employees.

References

Dennis,T. (2015). Unauthorized Breaches of Medical Records on the Rise.Health Day Newshttp://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2015/04/14/unauthorized-breaches-of-medical-records-on-the-rise

Donald,T. (2016) Major 2016 Healthcare Data Breaches: Mid-Year Summary.HIPPA Journalhttp://www.hipaajournal.com/major-2016-healthcare-data-breaches-mid-year-summary-3499/

Nayer,J. (2015) Ethical issues in electronic health records: A generaloverview. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4394583/