By Gary Palgon

At hospitals and healthcare systems worldwide, data is flowing in at a faster rate from a wider range of sources and in a broader variety of formats than ever before. This data is incredibly valuable. Healthcare organizations that unlock the value of their data can gain new perspectives on population and individual health management and identify ways to continuously improve patient care and operational efficiency.

Data can yield insights that drive organizational effectiveness and inspire next-generation innovations. But first, healthcare organizations must meet the challenges posed by modern data’s higher volumes and greater complexity. They must contend with ever more sophisticated security threats, comply with constantly changing data privacy regulations and standards and meet patient privacy expectations.
However, a new report from leading industry analyst firm Aberdeen suggests that healthcare organizations, while more aware of data compliance requirements, at an alarmingly high percentage aren’t currently meeting regulatory standards, and that’s only on the data they use today. Aberdeen’s report, “Enterprise Data in 2018: The State of Privacy and Security Compliance in Healthcare,” outlines the challenges they face.

Authored by Derek Brink, vice president and research fellow in Information Security and IT GRC at Aberdeen, the report found that the current state of privacy and security compliance is “exceedingly complex, surprisingly immature and disappointingly ineffective.” Brink and his team surveyed more than 360 enterprises to compile the report, including hospitals and health systems.

The results of the survey led Brink to conclude that enterprise leaders – including hospital and healthcare system executives – should strongly consider a new strategy for data integration and management since their current approach to handling data and related processes may be inadequate. The increasing complexity of data integration and management demands new ideas.

The report noted that although compliance frameworks for many regulations and standards have been in place for years, only 65 percent of healthcare organizations report full compliance. For more recent standards like GDPR, the compliance rate dropped to 48 percent. The survey included standards like HIPAA, CFR Part 11, GDPR, SOC2, PCI DSS, and other regulations that govern how organizations handle sensitive data like financial and personal health information.

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