The world we reside in is changing into more and more built-in, and because it does, the quantity of knowledge additionally will increase. It’s estimated that 2.5 quintillion bytes – that’s 2,500,00,00,000 million, for perspective – are created, captured, and shared day-after-day, and consultants predict that quantity will develop exponentially within the coming years. Estimates present that the healthcare trade generates about 30% of the world’s knowledge quantity. That quantity is anticipated to succeed in a compound annual progress charge of 36% throughout the subsequent few years. That is no shock; digital well being knowledge can enhance the velocity and high quality of care by giving suppliers easy accessibility to a affected person’s medical historical past, medicines, take a look at outcomes, diagnoses, and remedy plans.
Sadly, the compounding progress presents huge alternatives for these with malicious intentions to wreak havoc by means of cyberattacks on healthcare methods. The surge in cyberattacks in recent years has strained IT departments and highlighted vulnerabilities in digital well being file (EHR) methods that retailer delicate protected well being data (PHI). Ransomware, malware, and different malicious assaults have disrupted service operations, broken system integrity, and shut down technique of communication throughout well being methods – all of which put affected person security in danger.
The potential harm brought on by a profitable assault on an EHR might be catastrophic, not solely when it comes to monetary loss however the lack of affected person knowledge, disrupted communication and care supply, and reputational harm. With a lot at stake from these malicious cyberattacks, healthcare organizations should take proactive steps to guard their methods from hackers and different threats. Thus, there’s an pressing want for healthcare IT professionals to develop strong safety protocols and discover options to safeguard towards such threats and guarantee care groups can talk within the occasion of an assault to scale back dangers to sufferers.
Sustaining Care Crew Communication Throughout a Cyberattack
The effectiveness of EHRs as a method of communication for healthcare professionals has been known as into query attributable to their unique objective being primarily methods of file and income cycle administration instruments. This has led to an elevated emphasis on discovering new methods of securely sharing data that doesn’t rely solely on using EHRs and, actually, increase the flexibility to make the most of the info inside. With hackers regularly bettering their strategies, the trade should step up its focus to guard affected person data. As cyberattacks towards on EHRs particularly develop in frequency and magnitude, organizations must develop strong methods for safeguarding knowledge, together with exploring alternate technique of communication and collaboration outdoors the scope of EHRs as a part of total safety plans within the occasion of a cyberattack or one other emergency.
With the explosive progress of knowledge within the healthcare trade, effort should be positioned on bolstering safety measures. Sadly, cybercriminals have achieved a masterful job of recognizing and profiting from vulnerabilities, leveraging them for ransom, or promoting delicate data on the darkish internet. Healthcare organizations rely closely on EHRs to accumulate and retailer affected person knowledge. Nonetheless, the structural limitations of an EHR make it extremely difficult to proceed offering that care ought to the EHR be compromised.
Transformative Options
A rising variety of healthcare organizations have turned to superior clinical communication and collaboration (CC&C) platforms to handle the structural limitations of EHRs and guarantee they will proceed to ship high-quality care in an emergency. These workflow options not solely combine with hospital methods like EHRs; but in addition work outdoors of them and can stay operational within the occasion of an outage. Moreover, cloud-based CC&C platforms supply knowledge encryption and are HIPAA-compliant to guard affected person knowledge. Moreover, they will auto-delete messages after a set interval and even remotely wipe units, a useful characteristic contemplating the rise in malicious assaults on healthcare organizations utilizing refined strategies.
Together with encryption, these methods present further performance comparable to scheduling, affected person engagement, alarm administration, and occasion notification, all with out sacrificing consumer expertise. When carried out alongside superior safety methods, CC&C options assist organizations preserve sufferers and their knowledge secure, streamline crucial workflows, and shield affected person data from malicious actors, enabling cross-functional groups to concentrate on bettering affected person outcomes and permitting healthcare organizations to offset the specter of cybercrime with extra strong affected person knowledge safety and optimum care supply in an emergency. With cyberattacks becoming increasingly sophisticated and difficult to combatCC&C platforms have turn out to be important for strengthening safety measures, defending crucial knowledge, and guaranteeing the secure operation of crucial methods within the healthcare trade.
It has by no means been extra crucial to have the fitting platform in place – and now could be the time for healthcare organizations to take steps towards bolstering their defenses towards cyberattacks.
About Andrew Brooks, M.D.Andrew A. Brooks, M.D., is a fellowship-trained, board-certified orthopedic surgeon. He at present serves because the chief medical officer at TigerConnect, an organization he co-founded in 2010 to revolutionize healthcare workflow and productiveness. He has authored quite a few peer-reviewed articles and ebook chapters in his discipline of curiosity. Along with his work at TigerConnect, Dr. Brooks can also be a managing accomplice for 111 West Capital; his main focus is early-stage healthcare software program companies. Dr. Brooks is board licensed by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgical procedure and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.
Author: Andrew Brooks, M.D., Co-Founder and CMO at TigerConnect
Date: 2023-03-14 11:09:13
