The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) defines a transaction as an electronic exchange of information between two parties, to carry out financial or administrative activities related to healthcare. For example, a health care provider will send a claim to a health plan to request payment for medical services.
The HIPAA Journal reported that “2020 was the worst ever year for healthcare industry data breaches.” In the US alone, there were 642 reported data breaches in which the number of records stolen exceeded 500, and in total, nearly 29.3 million healthcare records were exposed.
Amidst the pandemic overwhelming the capacity of many hospital systems, malicious hackers have been quick to target healthcare providers and medical agencies. These cyber-attacks have hit both the United States and Europe in recent months, serving as a reminder for organizations to closely review their information security posture during these times of uncertainty.
Learn all about the HIPAA breach notification rules and how you can best protect your business by being ready to comply with anticipated 2021 HIPAA breach notification rules. The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) breach notification rules spell out how hospital systems, physicians, and other healthcare providers must notify their patients, as well as the U.S.
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) products refer to a combination of medical applications and devices connected to healthcare information technology systems through an online computer network or a wireless network. IoMT devices rely heavily on biosensors, critical in detecting an individual's tissue, respiratory, and blood characteristics. Non-bio sensors are also used to measure other patient characteristics such as heart and muscle electrical activity, motion, and body temperature.
After a year of lockdown, or nearly full lockdown, due to the ongoing health crisis, we learned a lot from how our organizations responded when we all had to change our work habits to a home-office setup.
The pandemic has put a lot of things on hold over the last year, but medical device security shouldn’t be one of them. The millions of medical devices that help keep people healthy—and in many cases keep them alive—have drawn mixed reviews from security experts since the internet happened. Even more so in the past year since the pandemic happened. There is just about unanimous agreement that the benefits of those devices outweigh the risks.
