The real potential of EHR integration and custom healthcare software systems can be seen when it is implemented into your healthcare practice. The ease it brings in accessing healthcare information and communicating with the care team members to make informed decisions.
If you’ve used such systems, then you must know that the time to care these healthcare systems can bring with EHR integration is huge, right? However, during the process, when the data is being transferred from one system to another, there is a high chance of data breaches. This can not only have negative consequences on patients and your practice but can also land you in legal trouble.
This is why there are some rules and regulations that you should abide by to ensure the safety of patients’ sensitive protected health information (PHI).
Having said that, if you’re developing a custom healthcare software, then complying with these regulatory bodies is fairly easier, but during the EHR integration process, the matters get tricky. There is a high chance that during the integration process you compromise the data security and compliance standards.
The new security risks that can compromise your system include unauthorized access, data breaches, etc. So, how can we ensure healthcare data privacy, HIPAA compliance, access control mechanisms and network security protocols during EHR integration.
Well, sit back, relax and read along this blog as a guide to EHR integration security, EHR integration compliance and data beach prevention for your EHR integration project.
Understanding Data Security & Compliance Regulations
Before getting started with the intricacies of ensuring data security and compliance during EHR integration, let’s first understand data security and what these compliance regulations are:
1. HIPAA Compliance
HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which is a comprehensive law designed to protect patient health information (PHI). And given the relevance of PHI with EHR systems, it plays a huge role in ensuring safety.
Some of the important provisions of HIPAA in EHR integration are individual rights to access, amend their health information. Minimum necessary rule, which allows the users to disclose the minimum information necessary for care delivery. And last but not least, track and audit how their PHI is being used.
Apart from that, there are certain security rules such as administrative safeguards in which the system should ensure confidentiality, integrity, availability of PHI, etc. Physical Safeguards are also included where the system must have physical safeguards in place to protect information systems and facilities. Last but not least technical safeguards, which includes safety measures like access controls, audit controls and encryptions.
2. GDPR Compliance
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and just like HIPAA as a law of the US, GDPR is a law in the European Union. The rules and regulation of GDPR is quite similar to that of HIPAA, such as data minimization, purpose limitation and data subject rights. However, GDPR allows cross-border data transfer and has certain additional rules in that context.
3. Other Relevant Regulations
While HIPAA and GDPR make up most of the regulation for security and privacy of electronic healthcare data, some other relevant regulations that you must know are HITECH and CCPA. These regulations also have significant impact on EHR integration. Cannot abide by them can land you in some legal troubles or worst data breaches, reputation loss, etc.
Implementing Robust Security Measures
Here are some of the robust security measures that you must implement in your healthcare system to successfully overcome EHR integration security challenges.
1. Data Encryption
Data encryption basically means converting the data into a secret code or ciphertext that can only be accessed with a unique digital key. It is a security measure that is completely based on cryptography. This way you can ensure that the sensitive patient data is safe when it is at rest and in transit while it is being shared with other systems.
There are several types of encryption techniques that you can use for your data encryption. Here are some of the most popular ones that you must know:
i. Symmetric Encryption: It is a fast and efficient encryption method, which is well suited for large data sets, which are a usual requirement of a large hospital. However, to share the security key, the sharing channel should be secure and its management can be complex.
ii. Asymmetric Encryption: While symmetric encryption requires the sharing of a security key, this method does not require its sharing which makes it more secure as it uses digital signatures and authentication. However, this system is a little slower and is much more complex to implement, which can be a major EHR integration challenge.
iii. Hash Functions: This is a one way function of encryption, where reversing the encrypted data is difficult. This is generally used for password storage, data integrity checks. However, it is vulnerable to collision attacks.
iv. Block Ciphers: This type of encryption encrypts the data in fixed-size blocks, which makes it efficient for large data sets. The major advantage of this is that it provides strong security with proper key management. However, it is vulnerable to certain attacks like padding oracle.
These are some of the most common secure data transfer methods that you can implement. However, risk management strategies must also be in place so that in case of any mishap, the data can be easily recovered and protected.
2. Access Control
Another security measure that you implement is access control to limit the access of PHI. This is one of the best ways to ensure that only authorized personnel can access the data and is being used ethically. For your EHR integration and healthcare system RBAC or role-based access control is perfect.
In this you create profiles and define their roles, who can only request access to the data. Along with this, user authentication is also equally important, as with these access control mechanisms you can ensure the user is exactly what he is claiming to be.
3. Network Security
Along with the system being secure, the network of which your system is a part of should be secure. While this is a....Click here to read more