How Medical Companies Protect Their Data

Any medical establishment offering services to patients is bound to be compliant with guidelines as provided in HIPAA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 as far as the medical records and information management is concerned. In the wake of electronic storage the software that are used to store online medical records and the databases have also got to be compliant with the HIPAA security standards.

All the software are HIPAA compliant for they are built using SSL or Secured socket layers which protects the software and the data from authorized attempt to access the data. This means that only authorized persons can gain entry into the system to either create a data record, to retrieve stored data or to modify. At every level the system provides for different levels of authorization too, besides keeping a log of every user’s access and exit to be able to provide traceability.

More over all the software databases are encrypted. This means that the information, records and data stored in the database is converted into a unique code which cannot be decoded or read by unauthorized persons.

All the software come with multi level access control security feature. This means that every user is provided with a password to be able to access and work on the system. The access to is restricted to a particular part of the system depending upon the user’s level and accordingly access rights are defined. The passwords expire after 30 days and new passwords are generate by the system or provided by the administrator or the user themselves. In the event some unauthorized person does get to know the password, he may not find it useful at all.

Every HIPAA compliant software comes with the provision of session timeouts. This prevents the system from displaying data unless somebody is working thus blocking passersby from reading what is on the screen.

The timeout limit can be set by the administrator of the system depending upon where the system is located. If the system is in a private area where no authorized persons have entry then the session timeout can be kept for a longer period.

Therefore all the databases use multi level security systems including SSL, encryption of data as well as access control through password and timeouts to block unwanted entry and protect the data with regard to the patient’s medical records. This makes it difficult for anyone to hack into the system.

In highly secure environments the system itself can be programmed to shut down on attempting an unauthorized entry. Besides systems security of course, there has to be physical security system in place too to ensure that the system is not accessed by others and through visual supervision too.

Get various other articles created by this very author about areas including hipaa privacy and what is universal health care.