Keeping Your ePHI Safe

There was a great article in the February issue of HFM Magazine from HFMA: Safeguarding ePHI: A Non-techie Guide for Healthcare Leaders by Chetan Parikh. The article reiterates what we have all heard before: medical record data is very valuable on the black market and this value makes it a target of hackers. Further, many healthcare organizations do not have sufficient safeguards in place to protect their ePHI, and this vulnerability continues to drive hackers toward medical record data.

The article cites the following top 10 practices for defending your ePHI against cyberattacks:

• Regularly perform audits of existing security infrastructure

• Establish a cybersecurity strategy

• Adopt a culture of full transparency in communication

• Encrypt data at every stage

• Implement data-centric protection of valuable data

• Implement real-time threat intelligence and protection

• Test data backup and disaster recovery capability

• Deploy anti-ransomware/phishing malware solutions

• Establish multi-tiered authentication and account access management policies

• Adopt cloud-based technology

For more in-depth information, you can read the full article HERE.