Posts Tagged ‘File Folder’

A recent released report shows that in 2011 there was clearly a 97% improve (year over year) in data breaches of protected health info (PHI). The report authored by Redspin, Inc. also showed that 19 million patient’s health records were affected in this improve in breaches. Over the past couple of years there has been an unprecedented level of information breaches carried out by thieves and other unauthorized individuals who either stole or snooped into patient records.

The Redspin’s 2011 PHI Breach Analysis utilized information through the U.S. Division of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) documents. They looked at HHS files for health related information breaches between 2009 and November 2011. The company’s evaluation showed that from the 385 breaches during this time around period, 39% took place through a laptop pc or some other transportable device. An additional 25% occurred on a desktop Computer or a network server. The biggest percentage was from malicious intent either to steal or to view. This was 60%.

“It makes logical sense that as more protected health information is digitized, it becomes structured information maintained in databases and is simpler to access and transfer to a laptop or portal storage device, which then gets lost or stolen,” Redspin’s president and CEO Daniel Berger told InformationWeek Healthcare. “Now you are able to have one million patient records stolen in one incident as opposed to somebody walking out the door having a file folder of 30 patient records.”

The investigation took observe that this rise is because of the adoption of electronic health records as well as the usage of new technologies like tablets and smaller laptops by the healthcare industry. On leading of this improve in mobile device usage, healthcare IT departments haven’t been able to create policies to prevent data breaches.

“The proliferation of transportable devices and media inside all IT environments that store PHI improve the likelihood of breach geometrically. Few healthcare employees could let you know what corporate IT security policies are in location; it is even rarer to locate safety awareness coaching programs,” the report states. Using usb protection is helpful.

“We think strongly that if safety isn’t made a leading priority the health safety trust model could fail. We believe it is time for an additional round of federal regulations to take things a step additional and say that all PHI should be encrypted if it is on portable devices,” Berger said. “The importance from the adoption of electronic health records is so critical towards the industry that it is time for the regulations to become more prescriptive.”

Oliver David writes articles for Data Security Weekly and other blogs on secure usb flash drive review.