Encryption And Other Database Security Lag At Healthcare Organizations

Tech leaders warn policy makers that even as more electronic medical records flood health IT systems, security controls remain sparse

 

Healthcare and IT experts convened on Capitol Hill this week to warn Congress that as healthcare organizations are increasing the use of electronic medical records in light of federal mandates, they are not protecting these records within the database and elsewhere. Security professionals agree that in order for the public to trust these records, healthcare organizations need to start working on database security best practices -- the same first-order practices that any organization with minimal security should start with to shore up sensitive data stores.

"Simply stated, the effort to promote widespread adoption and use of health IT to improve individual and population health will fail if the public does not trust it," said Deven McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project for the Center for Democracy, in testimony to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law (PDF) this week.

According to McGraw, even with certain safe harbor incentives in place for organizations to be exempt from costly breach notifications if exposed data is encrypted, statistics show that healthcare organizations are still not encrypting their data.

"The new breach notification provisions of HITECH provide an incentive for health care providers to encrypt health information using standards approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)," he said. "But we know from the statistics on breaches that have occurred since the notification provisions went into effect in 2009 that the health care industry appears to be rarely encrypting data."

More: http://www.darkreading.com/database-security/167901020/security/news/231902882/encryption-and-other-database-security-lag-at-healthcare-organizations.html