Wade the waters of #HITsecurity best practices at #HIMSS15: http://t.co/j1a0cWPKg3 pic.twitter.com/qE44S58FHv
— HIMSS (@HIMSS) April 1, 2015
HIMSS put out the great tweet above. The image itself is worthy of a laugh. Although, only a partial laugh since in healthcare many people don’t understand that a password doesn’t mean it’s encrypted. Plus, that’s just emblematic of how elementary healthcare’s implementation of security is in most healthcare organizations.
Yes, there are the outlier organizations and there are even the outlier security and privacy individuals within a large organization. However, on the whole healthcare is not secure. The hard thing is that it’s not because of bad intentions. Almost everyone I’ve met in healthcare really want to ensure the privacy and security of health information. However, there’s a general lack of understanding of what’s needed.
With that said, I have seen a greater focus on privacy and security in healthcare than I’ve ever seen before. HIMSS featuring so many sessions is just one indicator of that increased interest in the topic. It’s hard to ignore when every other day some major corporation inside and outside of healthcare is getting breached.
One of the biggest security holes in healthcare is business associates. Most don’t have a real understanding of how to be HIPAA compliant and that’s a massive risk for the healthcare organization and the business associate. That’s why I’m excited that people who get it like Mike Semel are offering HIPAA Compliance training for business associates. Doing HIPAA compliance right is not cheap, but it’s cheaper than getting caught in a breach.
Personally, I’ve seen a whole wave of HIPAA compliance products and services coming out. In fact, I’m looking at creating a feature on EMR and HIPAA which lists all of the various companies involved in the space. I’m sure I’ll hear a lot of discussion around this topic at HIMSS.
