As in any industry, security and compliance are the foundation for
healthcare. The data security and compliance aspects of healthcare are
fundamental to maintaining patient trust and allowing healthcare
organizations to operate. Due to the sensitive and vulnerable nature
of patients’ data and the need for seamless coordination between
different medical providers to facilitate care, proper security and
compliance is imperative. This data can include a patient’s medical
records, personal information, and financial information, highlighting
the necessity for the industry to take sensitive information seriously
and enforce proper security to protect patient privacy. The data held
and processed by healthcare providers can be highly sensitive,
requiring strict adherence to complex sets of regulations, including
the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the EU General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and many more. Failing to follow
these regulations can result in hefty monetary penalties, lawsuits,
and loss of customer or patient trust, all of which severely damage a
healthcare organization's reputation.
This article will discuss why off-the-shelf options aren’t cut out for
it and how unique flexibility in terms of
custom software development for healthcare
can play an important role in meeting these challenges. Custom
software presents an opportunity to address the unique security
concerns of healthcare providers while still remaining fully compliant
with relevant regulations. Certain features of this type of software,
such as the advanced security elements and the ease with which it can
be designed, can also help healthcare companies meet regulatory
compliance challenges. The medical field has always required a high
level of security. Patients' health information is sensitive and even
more important than other types of files that would also be considered
sensitive.
Healthcare data is highly sensitive, carrying information about a
patient's medical history, insurance, and social security details.
This amounts to a comprehensive profile of an individual, and as such,
it represents a particularly desirable target of the so-called
‘cybercriminal’. Those who successfully hack into the patient records
of the NHS in the name of criminal gain, identity theft, or even
blackmail can wreak havoc on people’s lives if they sell off the data
to the highest bidder. In fact, for this reason, in cases of data
breaches involving financial information, the details can simply be
canceled and replaced with new ones. In the case of healthcare data,
however, once the information has been disseminated, it is permanently
imprinted on the blockchain, and in this sense, it can never be truly
expunged, which is one of the reasons why it is valued so highly in
the black market. We only have to look at the estimated scale of the
problem to grasp the far-reaching consequences of a data breach that
involves stolen medical information and the impact both on the
financial viability of a healthcare establishment and also in terms of
the notion of one’s own privacy and safety.
In the past few decades, like other industrial sectors, the healthcare
sector has witnessed a dynamic growth in cybersecurity accidents. Some
of these incidents are high-profile attacks affecting millions of
lives at once. For instance, Universal Health Services, a healthcare
provider, received a blow to its operations by a crippling ransomware
attack in more than 250 of its facilities in 2020. The impact of the
2021 attack on the US-based IT management company Kaseya, which
ultimately resulted in the compromise of data at hundreds of other
companies worldwide, spanned healthcare institutions across the globe.
Both these attacks exposed the medical and personal information of
patients to attackers. Consumer and patient trust are of paramount
importance to healthcare providers, as well as to scientists
conducting human-subjects research, and the fear of financial losses,
reputational damage, and regulatory penalties due to breaches has put
data security at the top of the list, behind only care.
Healthcare institutions are tightly regulated with specific
requirements for safekeeping data and protecting the privacy of
patients: a key piece of legislation in the United States is the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Among
other things, HIPAA established standards for the security and
protection of health information within a ‘Security Rule’ – in
accordance with which the healthcare providers must put in place
appropriate safeguards to ensure the security of personal health
information for its confidentiality, integrity, and availability
(protection from hacking, unauthenticated access, disastrous
conditions, and so on). There must be an accepted process of data
handling, ensuring the safe and proper disclosure of information.
Similar in scope and effect in Europe is the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR), which establishes levels of data protection across
all vertices including the healthcare sector. Organisations must
obtain the express consent of those whose data they are processing as
well as enable data portability and robust security controls; GDPR
also affords individuals more rights regarding access to, correction
of and deletion of their data.
Perhaps most importantly, the Health Information Technology for
Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act – known as the HIPAA reboot
– encourages the use of electronic health records (EHRs) while
tightening data protection requirements. HITECH dramatically increases
the penalties for data breaches, especially for those HIPAA security
violators.
Failure to comply with these rules could result in significant
consequences for healthcare organizations. Penalties could range from
sharp fines to criminal charges depending on the type and details of
the violation, while reputational damage and loss of patients’ trust
may result in loss of business and operational delays. In serious
circumstances, non-compliance could trigger legal actions from injured
patients or government agencies.
Healthcare information security requires
healthcare software product development
because they allow a healthcare organization to address the specific
security concerns of the institution in ways that off-the-shelf
solutions cannot. Every healthcare provider operates within a unique
environment, with unique procedures, workflows, and information
systems that solve unique needs. It is incumbent upon the individual
provider, therefore, to customize their desired outcome to fit their
unique environment. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to security will
never be as robust as one that is tailored to meet specific
requirements. Customized software can work within existing
environments to integrate with existing systems, operate within the
confines of local regulations, efficiently and securely work with
large amounts of sensitive data, and meet privacy requirements and
needs that would otherwise be incompatible with centrally designed
off-the-shelf solutions.
The next main advantage of utilizing
custom healthcare software solutions
is its ability to accommodate granular security requirements. Through
the careful planning and development process, security mechanisms can
be built directly into the fabric of the software. Encryption, for
example, can be incorporated at multiple layers, covering data at rest
and in transit as well. With this, valuable patient data can be
protected against insider and external threats, even if they get
intercepted or stolen. Other security mechanisms can be implemented to
define access privileges and clearly control what data employees or
external systems can access. For instance, these mechanisms can be
fine-tuned to reflect an organizational structure in terms of who can
access what and who can perform which kinds of tasks. By doing so,
they prevent circumstances where someone not authorized can access and
alter data within a custom system.
A significant step toward ensuring the security of such data is the
availability of another key built-in component – audit trails. An
audit trail is a log or journal of all activities humans or software
entities conduct on a system. With this feature, healthcare custom
software allows administrators to identify and track who did what,
when, and how. Not only can such information be useful in helping
discover and respond to attacks, but it is also instrumental in
addressing compliance requirements. The records detailing who accessed
what piece of data and when can help healthcare organizations spot
potential breaches and respond to them speedily. So, all these
features testify to the fact that custom healthcare software is a
potent force when it comes to making healthcare organizations’ online
data secure and ensuring compliance in the face of surging cyber
threats, as all these measures can be customized the way you prefer.
Generic software, by contrast, often accommodates industry regulations
as an afterthought. With
healthcare custom software development, regulatory requirements can be built into the software
transformation from the beginning. Instead of forcing one’s
platform/software/app into place, one creates it to suit someone’s
needs, so it’s specifically shaped for the task at hand. Every ‘cog’
of custom healthcare software will be built according to the legal
necessities governing healthcare, which saves healthcare organizations
the financial blow of hefty penalties and ensures that all aspects of
patient care and handling of patient data conform to standardized
legal standards.
A more automated approach to staying compliant can be supported
directly through the implementation and customization of automated
reporting features within your custom software. Built to suit the
needs of an organization, custom software can generate reports
automatically that document compliance with regulatory guidelines,
such as HIPAA compliance or GDPR compliance. By putting the ability to
manage and document access to data within your organization into the
hands of custom software, staff spends less time doing so while the
organization fully meets compliance standards. Automated reporting
includes the ability of the software to report how patient data is
accessed and shared. It can provide all the documentation necessary to
produce for audits and to stay compliant with HIPAA standards.
An urgent compliance feature that can be built into custom healthcare
software concerns data storage. Designing storage solutions that meet
or exceed these data security rules includes encryption and data
security provisions required for storage or transit. These specific
algorithms for encryption and data security planning can include
encryption algorithms required by regulations and data access controls
consistent with regulations. For example, without data access controls
to restrict who can view or modify sensitive data, such as protected
health information (PHI) in the US, a data breach could put an
organization at risk and create liability issues.
Another example of proactive compliance is real-time monitoring.
Proper
custom healthcare software development services
now allows the software to detect compliance issues and notify the
corresponding teams of website administrators about the detected
violations. This can include real-time monitoring of system activity
to trigger alerts of unusual access patterns, automatically log
security incidents, or even shut down unauthorized access attempts in
real-time. These preventive features can help organizations minimize
possible compliance risks and avoid penalties. At the same time,
healthcare administrators can breathe easier knowing that their
patient data is secured according to the most current regulations.
Data security and compliance can often be an issue with off-the-shelf
healthcare software (e.g., software designed for use across the whole
industry rather than tailored for a specific organization) as this
type of software is often not fine-tuned to meet the exact
requirements of individual businesses. Off-the-shelf software is
normally built as a ‘one size fits all’ solution, and therefore,
you’re more likely to end up with functionality that doesn’t fully
meet your regulatory requirements and, specifically, resolves whatever
unique security issues healthcare providers face in storing and
processing sensitive data. For example, while off-the-shelf software
can include highly specialized encryption tools, it’s unlikely to
include the same level of fine-tuned features needed (such as granular
access controls) to satisfy the strict requirements imposed by HIPAA
protections or GDPR compliance, etc. Similarly, off-the-shelf software
may not generate reports or audit trails built around the unique
compliance requirements of a specific organization, making it
difficult to satisfy regulatory demands.
By contrast, custom software solutions, be it on-demand app
development or
custom healthcare software development, are surprisingly advantageous in terms of data security and
compliance. The first advantage concerns flexibility: custom software
can be built from scratch to have certain security features and
compliance measures that match your company's needs. For instance, it
can be built with specific encryption protocols, specific types of
access control, and automated reporting features that allow your
company to easily follow the compliance rules required in different
fields.
Another important benefit of custom software is scalability. As your
institution grows, with more offices, more care sites, greater patient
complexity, and more data collection points, a custom solution can be
written to meet that ability to grow anticipatorily without outside
experts being brought in or systems needing to be modified.
Data-gathering sites can be added to fit new offices opened up, new
regulations can be added to keep up with ever-changing compliance
needs, and features can be scaled as new locations and geographies are
opened to meet the demands of the growing enterprise. While
off-the-shelf software can grow to accommodate entity growth or come
with the capability of being able to plug different components to fit
a large organization, it can also be extremely expensive to modify to
meet evolving regulatory requirements, as well as to accommodate
technical changes.
In the end, custom software is built to meet certain organizational
needs that off-the-shelf can’t. Whether you choose
custom healthcare software development company
or software development services, custom software can handle not only
operational workflow but also data and information in a way that
adheres to regulatory guidelines, it enables the organization to meet
all areas of care more effectively. If there’s special data and
especially special regulations, custom software can help meet that
special need.
To summarize, custom healthcare software serves as the all-encompassing answer to the rigorous demands of data security and compliance. Its crowning features lie in its specificity – a custom application is tailor-made to follow the letter of the law regarding specific regulations and security ambitions, giving provider organizations the confidence to protect patient data to the fullest extent without needing to overhaul their systems to adapt to industry changes. The highly secure nature of customized database access and privileges, with redundant security measures such as advanced encryption on top of fine-grained access controls, keeps unauthorized parties from exploiting the sensitive data that healthcare organizations manage. Likewise, custom applications can be pre-programmed to limit staff to a set amount of unauthorized data downloads, monitor breaches, and automatically report to the right authorities, making compliance a relatively easy process and lifting some of the burdens of an organization’s IT and administrative staff.
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