Boosting Healthcare Data Security: The Role of HIPAA Compliance

Discover how HIPAA can help healthcare organizations protect sensitive patient information.

According to The HIPAA Journal, hacking incidents are the leading cause of data breaches in the healthcare industry. Although these incidents have significantly increased over the last decade or so, many of them were only detected months or years after they occurred—placing sensitive data at risk for security breaches.

So, what does this mean for leaders in healthcare, such as hospital administrators, physicians who own private practice, or other stakeholders within the industry?

The healthcare data your organization handles is at high risk for cyber attacks.

With an increasingly digitized healthcare industry, cybercriminals are constantly hunting for security gaps they can exploit to access sensitive patient data. Upon accessing these data, cybercriminals can sell it on the dark web or exorbitantly ransom companies with threats of exposing the stolen data.

In either case, any event that can compromise patient data privacy and security poses risks to business continuity and an organization’s reputation. Furthermore, the financial impact of healthcare data breaches can be as high as $9 million per incident, highlighting the need for organizations that handle sensitive healthcare data to invest in the right cybersecurity services.

So, how can you improve data security in healthcare?

It all comes down to being proactive about implementing data privacy and security controls across your company to stay ahead of common attacks like ransomware or phishing.

And compliance with HIPAA enables you to develop a robust healthcare cybersecurity strategy. Let’s explore how it all works, and what steps you can take to increase your organization's security posture.

The Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act of 1995 (HIPAA) was established to help organizations within and adjacent to healthcare safeguard the protected health information (PHI) they handle.

HIPAA compliance helps these organizations streamline their data privacy and security controls and improves operational efficiency.

The HIPAA framework consists of four primary Rules:

The Privacy Rule

The Security Rule

The Breach Notification Rule

The Enforcement Rule

In its entirety, HIPAA helps companies safeguard the privacy, security, integrity, confidentiality, and availability of various categories of PHI.

From a proactive standpoint, the Privacy and Security Rules guide the implementation of controls that will help an organization mitigate data privacy and security risks. When starting with HIPAA compliance, these Rules are likely the most crucial, especially when developing a healthcare data security policy specific to your company.

On the other hand, the Breach Notification Rule outlines the stipulations for communicating about a data breach to impacted parties, should one occur. The Enforcement Rule lists the civil penalties for potential HIPAA violations related to non-compliance.

Now, let’s explore practical ways organizations in the healthcare industry can comply with HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule defines which healthcare or healthcare-adjacent organizations must comply with HIPAA based on their specific business transactions.

According to the Privacy Rule, these organizations are defined as “covered entities” and include:

Health plans, which cover the cost of healthcare services.

Healthcare providers, which provide healthcare services.

Healthcare clearing houses, which convert non-standard data to a standard form.

HIPAA requires covered entities to appropriately use or disclose any PHI they handle to mitigate data breach risks.

For instance, healthcare providers such as hospitals or private clinics must safeguard PHI throughout its lifecycle, especially at high-risk points such as:

Collection of patient data using paper-based or electronic forms during visits

Storage of physical forms of PHI and electronic ones on the cloud vs. on-premises

Transmission of PHI within or between network providers following referrals

Complying with HIPAA at each point of the PHI lifecycle helps covered entities to adequately protect PHI until it’s safely disposed of or deleted from their systems. These safeguards also apply when these organizations outsource transactions like billing to third parties, also classified as “business associates” of the covered entities.

To avoid non-compliance risks, any company that handles PHI must evaluate whether it’s a covered entity or business associate thereof and, if so, comply with HIPAA’s Rules.

Upon identifying the various types of PHI at risk of compromise, organizations can comply with the Security Rule, which outlines practical safeguards for remaining HIPAA-compliant year-round. In particular, the Security Rule’s controls are designed to protect electronic PHI (ePHI) from data breach risks.

The HIPAA Security Rule comprises three types of controls:

Administrative safeguards: Upon identifying risks to its PHI, an organization can implement strategic processes to achieve HIPAA compliance, whether it’s investing in reliable identity and access management (IAM) tools or training its staff to become more cyber vigilant.

Physical safeguards: If PHI is collected, processed, or stored in physical locations, deploying access controls prevents intruders from gaining unauthorized access to endpoints like workstations or other PHI locations like server rooms, which mitigates privacy and security risks to the PHI.

Technical safeguards: HIPAA also stipulates specific controls that healthcare organizations can implement to prevent attacks from unfolding. For example, audit controls evaluate where security measures at PHI locations are up-to-date with industry standards while integrity controls verify PHI has not been altered in any way, compromising its availability or confidentiality.

Practically speaking, your company can tailor the safeguards listed by the HIPAA Security Rule to its specific needs to implement a sustainable, long-term healthcare data security strategy.

How can you secure your healthcare data and maintain its privacy? HIPAA compliance is a great place to start, regardless of your organization’s scale or business interests.

However, achieving and maintaining HIPAA compliance is not always simple.

The types and amounts of data you collect each year are likely evolving. Employee turnover throughout the year means there will be gaps in institutional knowledge regarding best practices for HIPAA compliance.

Protecting your sensitive data requires implementing the right safeguards long before cybercriminals attempt to steal it. And if you’re already HIPAA-compliant, it's always wise to optimize your existing controls so they meet or surpass industry standards.

It all starts with speaking to a HIPAA compliance specialist who can advise on which steps to implement—and how to do so.