In November 2017, healthcare data security and privacy company Protenus released a report on the most common security breaches in healthcare. Here are a few key takeaways.
Insiders are a bigger threat than hackers
Protenus is one of the largest security vendors for electronic health records (EHRs) and their mid-year review sheds some important light on the most common types of security breaches in healthcare.

Mobile devices have revolutionized the healthcare industry: They’re convenient and significantly improve work efficiency and patients’ satisfaction. Yet they also come with risks. Patient data handled by those devices can be leaked. That’s why every healthcare provider needs to be extra careful about data security when using mobile devices.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to completely revolutionize the healthcare industry. Innovations like smart pacemakers and fitness trackers monitor patients’ vitals and unearth patterns that can lead to more accurate diagnoses. But like any new technology, it also brings a slew of security risks healthcare professionals need to address.

New IT trends are usually equal parts exciting and confusing. Today, that generalization describes blockchain technology perfectly. It’s a complex concept that has the potential to totally revolutionize every industry -- including healthcare. Even if you have no plan to invest in blockchain soon, you need to understand what it is.

Two trends have been rising in popularity in tandem: HIPAA compliance audits and social media. Obviously both of these are far too important to be correlated directly, but they do intersect with each other. Social media tends to push people toward oversharing, and that’s definitely something you don’t want when hosting regulated patient data.

Physicians in certain parts of the world still make house calls, but they’re a rare breed. Today, most patients either go to a neighborhood clinic or hospital, or make a quick trip to a pharmacy for instant relief. Patients who prefer to get treated in the comfort of their own home have another option too: telemedicine.

No healthcare provider today can operate without robust technology backing them. That doesn’t mean they have to spend excessively on IT infrastructure they have to manage themselves. One of those tech expenses include costly healthcare software, complete with on-premise components that a healthcare company will be much better off outsourcing.

Even if notable punishments and fines for HIPAA non-compliance have only been doled out over the last 6 years, data privacy regulations have been around for 14. And with each passing year, these rules evolve in ways that make it near impossible to keep up without an expert on hand.

Computer technology firm Symantec is warning consumers that an infamous trojan virus still targets healthcare data across the United States and around the world. This infamous piece of malware hides among image files downloaded with pirated software.

In this day and age, evolving technologies surround and influence people and businesses the world over. Technology has advanced by massive leaps and bounds in recent years, ushering in convenient developments like autonomous self-driving cars. However, in terms of industries for which artificial intelligence (AI) can do the most good, healthcare is at the top of the list.