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Creating mobile device policies can be tricky. Burdensome security policies and strategies that diminish productivity will most likely result in employee workarounds that defeat security efforts.^1,2 Additionally, human error and criminal intent can defeat the best-intentioned employee laptop and storage device security strategies. Despite these difficulties, mobile device policies are a necessary part of a comprehensive information security program to prevent HIPAA data breaches.

The healthcare industry experiences more data breaches (confirmed data disclosure) than any other industry in the United States, accounting for more than 24% of all breaches.¹ In 2017, healthcare data breaches compromised more than 5 million healthcare records² and cost providers an average of $380 per record — more than any other industry and 69% greater than the overall average.

A data breach doesn’t need to be criminal or intentional to be reportable. When a storage device is small, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether the device was lost, misplaced or stolen. However, even if a flash drive is presumably lost, a breach analysis must still be conducted and potentially affected patients must be notified if there is a probability of data compromise.

A review of the data on the OCR Breach Portal indicates that only about 20 percent of healthcare data breaches through 2017 are the result of hacking, but they involve large numbers of records.¹ Unfortunately, the healthcare industry also has more data breaches than any other industry.² There are various reasons for this. We describe some of those here and offer recommendations for preventing HIPAA data breaches caused by criminal hackers.

Your patients are online, and they’re searching for information about their symptoms. Maintaining a medical blog for your practice is an effective way to take advantage of this changing landscape of online medical knowledge and virtual physician-patient relationships.