As an ABA practitioner or professional in behavioral health services who collects patients’ information for medical data systems, you may be concerned about how the information is collected and stored. You’re not alone.
A study titled “Privacy and Security Concerns Regarding Electronic Health Information” on the National Library of Medicine website notes a general concern about the security of collected data. Even if you go above and beyond to protect your clients’ data, your ABA consulting practice and clients may still be vulnerable to accidental or intentional leaks from internal members or outsiders who gain unauthorized access to the system for their own reasons.
Regrettably, no system is perfect, and there’ll always be some risk that your data may be compromised. That said, you can take some consolation from the fact that, regardless of whether you process data in-house or work with a third party, the digital systems used for medical data collection and storage take several steps to protect a patient’s personal and medical information.
Join us as we examine in more detail how these systems, laws, and regulations protect your patients’ private data from prying eyes.
Federal protection with HIPAA
HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, is a federal law that was adopted to protect a patient’s sensitive health information from being disclosed without their consent. It also outlines the rules that must be followed in specific circumstances to disclose such information without their consent. In their article “HIPAA security rule & risk analysis,” the American Medical Association describes how:
“The HIPAA Security Rule requires physicians to protect patients’ electronically stored, protected health information (known as “ePHI”) by using appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and security of this information. Essentially, the Security Rule operationalizes the protections contained in the Privacy Rule by addressing the technical and non-technical safeguards that covered entities must implement to secure ePHI.
All covered entities must assess their security risks, even those that use certified electronic health record (EHR) technology. Those entities must put administrative, physical, and technical safeguards in place to maintain compliance with the Security Rule and document every security compliance measure.”
The article then discusses implementing administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Ultimately, it’s reassuring to know that federal laws regulate how people interact with your patients’ data.
Do new data privacy laws protect at a state level?
In addition to federal laws, many states have implemented general consumer data privacy and protection laws that are likely to provide additional protection for your information, particularly regarding certain aspects of HIPAA that may be out of step with recent developments in the digital domain.
An article published by The International Association of Privacy Professionals ( IAPP), titled “Filling the void? The 2023 state privacy laws and consumer health data”, notes how the new privacy laws implemented by some states take a less sector-driven approach. Instead, they provide a blanket of protection to all individuals. The various acts they believe could address the weaknesses of HIPAA are:
- The California Privacy Rights Act
- The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act
- The Colorado Privacy Act
- The Connecticut Data Privacy Act
- Utah’s Consumer Privacy Act
However, these acts provide exemptions of varying degrees to data covered by HIPAA. While they may fill some of the gaps left by a somewhat dated HIPAA, ultimately, more focused acts such as Washington’s My Health, My Data Act, which only came into effect on March 31st, 2024, may be needed to address any further outstanding weaknesses in health data protection at the state level.
How personal data is protected by medical data service providers
Even though some areas of the law need to be addressed at both federal and state levels, that doesn’t mean service providers for healthcare practitioners are leaving gaping holes in data privacy for medical records. Whether they’re involved with billing, data capture, or handling your side of medical data collection, these organizations are taking the necessary steps to ensure that their staff and platforms are capable of protecting data on their platforms. Steps taken may include:
1. Ensuring connections and data are encrypted
Service providers also take steps to guarantee the integrity of medical data collection methods. They encrypt data as it’s transmitted online to protect it while it’s en route between a healthcare practitioner and their servers. They also prevent prying eyes from accessing data they don’t have the right to by ensuring it’s encrypted when stored at their data centers.
2. Educating staff on HIPAA and cybersecurity
Staff who are educated about HIPAA regulations know the laws governing health data protection and what they’re legally obliged to do to avoid accidentally breaking them. Providing staff with additional education on cybersecurity also provides them with the information they need to avoid accidentally leaking information or providing access to an unauthorized individual. For example, ensuring employees are aware of password strength, fake links, and social engineering attacks can enhance cybersecurity.
3. Limiting the data that staff have access to
Service providers offer additional security by ensuring staff can access only the data they need. This way, an individual cannot access data outside the scope of their duties, minimizing any risks of leaks or malicious acts.
4. Logging access to data
By logging who accesses data and when, service providers make it easier to identify any individuals involved in leaks or breaches and can then act accordingly. This should deter those who may have ulterior motives for accessing patient data.
5. Providing additional security features for mobile devices and other IoT devices
Many healthcare practitioners use mobile devices to access patient information, which opens up another route for data compromise. By enabling additional security features such as biometric two-factor authentication, remote locks, or the ability to wipe a missing, stolen, or compromised mobile device, service providers add an extra layer of protection to patient health data.
Similarly, many IoT devices, such as smart bands and smartwatches, are being used to gather information about the user’s health. Unfortunately, not all of these tools are as secure as they should be, potentially creating new access points for hackers. Good service providers are aware of the risks these devices pose and are taking steps to ensure that they’re secure, either through data connection encryption, strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, or by issuing regular software security updates.
6. Updating all of their software for maximum security
A service provider isn’t staffed by IT gurus who only know their computer’s ins and outs. They also make use of software that’s provided by other companies that they don’t maintain themselves.
To ensure that those less IT literate don’t pose a security risk to the data they have access to, service providers ensure that regular updates are made so that all the data in their care is as secure as possible.
7. Taking advantage of AI monitoring tools
Many service providers use AI to perform anomaly detection. The AI is trained to understand how a network and different connections operate. If it spots anything unusual, such as data from a connection it doesn’t recognize or a device it’s never seen before; it can flag this as a potential security risk, close the connection, or deny the device access to the network. AI can also identify and quarantine suspicious files to prevent damage from malicious software such as viruses, malware, and ransomware.
8. Providing offsite data backups
Even when a service provider takes all the precautions we’ve listed here, there’s still a small chance that an employee error or weakness in their IT systems could result in a data breach or even being locked out of their systems if malware or ransomware is present. Offsite data backups provide another layer of protection should something happen to the data at the primary site, allowing the service provider to roll back to the last backup, thereby minimizing potential data losses.
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