Introduction
Healthcare organizations that deal with patients learn about their well-being and resolve private health concerns. All information collected from patients by covered entities – hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, and more – is defined by the law as protected health information (PHI) (Office for Civil Rights [OCR], 2022). It is vital to protect PHI as it contains sensitive data about people, including their demographics and physical or mental health conditions.
Moreover, PHI may include financial and identifying information, such as one’s Social Security number and insurance. According to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), organizations must institute mechanisms for patient data safety and ensure that such security measures are effective (OCR, 2022). PHI can be protected in many ways, including physical, administrative, and virtual approaches, and staff education, completed with an instructor, peer support, media, or games, is vital for preventing data phishing attacks.
Patient Information Protection
Security Mechanisms
In modern hospitals, the security of HPI depends on several factors: personnel knowledge, physical barriers, software restrictions, and management policies. Thus, each organization must develop specific security mechanisms that every worker knows and follows. An example of physical safety is placing computers that can access patient data in separate rooms inaccessible to non-employees (Adler, 2023).
Several programs should be installed on each device, including firewalls to protect from viruses, email filters to eliminate spam links, and encryption services for communication and data transfer (Keshta & Odeh, 2021). Additional web filters may be turned on so that staff cannot access websites that can steal data from a computer (Keshta & Odeh, 2021). Overall, an organization cannot choose only one of those mechanisms – data security should be upheld with activities, measures, and policies involving the physical and digital spaces.
Administrative and Personnel Issues
While the variety of tools can increase the safety of PHI, the actions of administrators and personnel determine whether patients’ data will be shared with other people. The main issues regarding hospital employees are connected to their awareness of safety measures and adherence to the organization’s policies. The lack of knowledge about information protection and common ways of stealing or misusing data among personnel can lead to the risk of revealing PHI to malicious users.
The administration may appoint a security official to develop and implement procedures to overcome human-related issues. This individual will work on policies and education programs for employees (Adler, 2023). Training is crucial to increase employees’ compliance with the introduced security measures (Azeez et al., 2019). Without sufficient learning, the staff may expose or lose patient data.
Level of Access
As mentioned previously, an important factor in increasing PHI security is the limited access to information by non-employees. However, data should also be protected from some personnel, depending on their status and the need to use the information for patient care. Organizations should follow the rule of the necessary minimum – PHI should only be available to professionals if it benefits patient care (Adler, 2023). Thus, the information recipient’s role determines their access to PHI and ability to use, share, or modify it.
Limitations can be put in place with the help of specific devices, such as electronic keys and signatures. In electronic systems, a simple way to distinguish between employee roles is by creating accounts with different access capabilities. Both measures can be utilized for different scenarios, as handling patient data is complex.
Handling and Disposal of Confidential Information
Information’s privacy should be handled with caution and care so as not to lose or modify it erroneously. Moreover, data cannot be stored indefinitely, as it increases the risk of misuse, leading to high volumes of needed storage. HIPAA contains guidelines for organizations to follow to ensure the proper use and disposal of data. For instance, all organizations should establish policies about editing data and its deletion.
Removing PHI is especially important, as any files – paper-based or digital – can leave a trace and be retrieved by individuals with malicious intent. To avoid this, paper records and labels may be burned, shredded, or pulverized to ensure they are unreadable (OCR, 2022). A procedure also exists for corrupting and deleting electronic files so they cannot be restored (Azeez et al., 2019). Confidential information should remain unavailable to people even after many years, and these techniques should be used in every medical organization.
Staff Education: Phishing and Spam Emails
Some of the issues that hospital personnel may encounter are phishing and spam emails. Both usually include links to harmful content that extracts or corrupts data on the device (Gordon et al., 2019). Health professionals must learn about phishing and how to detect such threats in the digital space to avoid putting PHI at risk. There are many ways to educate personnel about cybersecurity and the conscious use of data. Some approaches are classes with instructors, peer training, on-the-job training, and self-directed education.
Instructor-Led Classes
The first strategy is to develop an educational program and find a professional to teach staff about phishing. For example, the appointed security officer may lead these lessons. During these lessons, the instructor shares information, asks questions, talks with the staff, and tests their knowledge (Hebda et al., 2019). They may also include individual training, homework, and interactive scenarios, such as role-playing, for workers to practice finding suspicious links and untrustworthy information (Hebda et al., 2019).
The benefits of this approach are high engagement and feedback, while drawbacks may include reliance on the quality of teaching and type of presentation (Hebda et al., 2019). Instructor-led classes can easily evaluate personnel’s knowledge through observation and exams. The effectiveness of proficiency tests and staff behavior during work may also be examined.
Peer Training
Another strategy is peer training – a teaching method that does not require the presence of an instructor. In the scenario, staff members can meet in real life or use social media to communicate and research information. They may be provided with a set of exercises, or one peer may test the knowledge of another.
This training approach is beneficial as it will likely focus on job-specific problems and experiences (Hebda et al., 2019). Simultaneously, the peer mentor has to be diligent and knowledgeable to provide all necessary information (Hebda et al., 2019). The results of peer learning are simple to evaluate through tests and examination of the peer’s responses during training.
On-the-Job Training
The approach to learning new information while performing one’s duties focuses on the practical application of new skills. In the case of phishing, it may be challenging to simulate a scenario, as staff members usually respond to emails individually and not as a group, and emails with harmful links may not arrive when needed. Yeoh et al. (2022) suggest simulating a phishing attack and viewing how personnel respond. On-the-job training may be advantageous as it immediately uses information, but it is also challenging to use in healthcare organizations’ stressful and busy atmosphere. Their response can evaluate one’s interaction with a simulation, and knowledge tests may be administered to see knowledge retention.
Personal Training
The final set of educational strategies includes a variety of ways for personnel to learn on their own time, using resources provided by the organization. The forms of content may consist of video lectures, online classes and tutorials, games, simulations, and text- or audio-based media. Using media content about phishing and spam emails will allow staff to watch, listen to, or read the material at their own pace.
The program may include giving workers all the information and setting a deadline to ensure they complete the training. They may pass a test that challenges their understanding and checks their engagement with the media. This method is helpful for busy professionals but offers little interaction (Hebda et al., 2019). Thus, videos, recordings, and texts may not be enough for staff to practice their knowledge.
Games, simulations, and tutorials offer more participation for personnel while also being available to them outside work hours. For instance, a hospital may collect past incidents of receiving phishing or spam links and create simulation scenarios where staff members choose whether to click the link and why they made a specific decision. The gamification process can interest learners and allow them to practice their skills (Yeoh et al., 2022). However, it requires significant planning, resources, and design knowledge (Hebda et al., 2019). Gamified content can be evaluated without additional tests, as scenarios can record correct and incorrect answers and allow learners to retry until they pass.
Conclusion
Protected health information (PHI) is integral to healthcare and contains sensitive data. Medical organizations must have a system of security mechanisms that effectively protect the HPI and manage how staff access it. A hospital may have a combination of physical barriers, software, and access restrictions in place to ensure that professionals use needed data and cannot modify or delete it accidentally. Education about cybersecurity is a vital part of HPI protection. Many approaches can be taken, each possessing its benefits and drawbacks.
References
Adler, S. (2023). How to secure patient information (PHI). The HIPAA Journal. Web.
Azeez, N. A., & Van der Vyver, C. (2019). Security and privacy issues in e-health cloud-based system: A comprehensive content analysis. Egyptian Informatics Journal, 20(2), 97-108. Web.
Gordon, W. J., Wright, A., Glynn, R. J., Kadakia, J., Mazzone, C., Leinbach, E., & Landman, A. (2019). Evaluation of a mandatory phishing training program for high-risk employees at a US healthcare system. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 26(6), 547-552. Web.
Hebda, T., Hunter, K., & Czar, P. (2019). Handbook of informatics for nurses and healthcare professionals (6th ed.). Pearson.
Keshta, I., & Odeh, A. (2021). Security and privacy of electronic health records: Concerns and challenges. Egyptian Informatics Journal, 22(2), 177-183. Web.
Office for Civil Rights. (2022). Summary of the HIPAA Security Rule. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Web.
Yeoh, W., Huang, H., Lee, W. S., Al Jafari, F., & Mansson, R. (2022). Simulated phishing attack and embedded training campaign. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 62(4), 802-821. Web.