Regulation is another challenge for conducting data security investigations. When health care providers are dealing with potential lawsuits and/or federal investigations, they need to be 100 percent certain of their investigation’s findings. There simply must be accurate data before bringing a case to court or in front of regulators.
Implementing proactive responses
Health care providers can move beyond their typical reactive style by implementing several best practices. Here are five ways firms can transform their data security processes:
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• Health care providers can take several steps to proactively improve their security risk exposure, and make it easier to conduct fast and accurate investigations. A first step is to aggressively invest in security programs that go beyond the bare minimum that might be required by regulations. Providers must bring in expertise in terms of both upgrading of the security staff and their capabilities. It also requires thorough and continuous review of acceptable use and identity access policies. After some health care breaches, it comes to light that the affected organization did not perform identity access audits or change policies for years.
• Shoring up the organization’s information data security can also mean bringing in third parties. This can mean adding the latest technology for monitoring and data protection, and utilizing third-party consultants and managed services providers. Third-party firms offer advanced monitoring tools and can help organizations identify users across all platforms, and then set access rules to limit breaches.
• Health care providers and third parties can’t protect against the unknown, so there must be an evaluation of where all of the at-risk information resides. Organizations must catalog where the sensitive information is held, whether it’s protected health data, financial records of patients or internal information or personal employee information. The cataloging should not only look at where the information resides, but also who can access the data, and how restricted (if at all) is that access. Performing a risk analysis is essential so that organizations can better match up new technology tools and new security employees to the most pressing need. Compiling all of an organization’s data also gives it an opportunity to delete unneeded information (assuming that fits within regulations), which can further reduce their risk exposure.
