Medical staff used to manually write down large amounts of healthcare information that was difficult to handle and preserve. The development of technology made it possible to save and retrieve this data at the touch of a finger, but this convenience also carries risks. Patient information is more exposed as a result of the rising rate of digitalization’s data breaches and cyberattacks. Due to the fact that people trust health-tech firms with their personal information, the highest level of data privacy is essential in the healthcare industry. 

Strict data privacy regulations must be followed with regard to medical records. In addition to hackers, organisations that engage in criminal activity or utilise backdoor techniques to gather data also represent a concern. 

Concerns 

Hackers may use healthcare information to extort and blackmail people while also causing them great suffering thanks to data breaches. They can use medical data to commit other types of fraud, such insurance fraud. Unencrypted medical data poses the risk of exposing the victim’s identity, bank accounts, and other personal information. 

At the most grassroots level, some of the biggest obstacles to healthcare data security are ignorance, a lack of digital literacy, role-based access, and ecosystem-wide regulation. 

Suggestions 

Strict data privacy regulations must be properly balanced with the implementation of digital healthcare. 

Any internal infrastructure that manages patient data ought to be set up with role-based access. Role-based access is predicated on the idea that people who have restricted access to some information will also have restricted access to that information’s data and other components. 

The hardest problem to solve is lack of awareness. A certain amount of data security training is required for healthcare staff who collect patient data. It becomes exceedingly difficult to stop or, in certain cases, avert the breach if personnel are not given basic instructions.