Innovative Solutions for Healthcare and Data Security During Covid-19

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Sonia Randhawa

The current Covid-19 pandemic has necessitated a shift in how people seek out and receive healthcare all across the country. While innovative solutions for both treatment and data management have arisen, more is needed to ensure absolute privacy and security of personal data. The inability to simply drive over if your doctor’s office due to doctor’s office and medical center closures and fears about catching the virus creates an intense need for emerging healthcare privacy technology.

Key Considerations in Data Management in Healthcare

The long-used structure of healthcare focuses on personal and private interactions between people needing services and their medical provider. Maintaining privacy in an examination room or office with a closed door is quite simple. As long as the doctor, nurse, or technician does not talk about an individual’s status in front of others and maintains the paper file in a secure room, they will not violate HIPAA laws.

Telemedicine Privacy

People expect and healthcare rules require privacy for personal information. Increased use of virtual communications and telemedicine challenge these needs if the technology is insufficient in any way. Increased focus on these practices during the pandemic fuel innovative solutions that protect both patients and doctors.

Gathering Accurate Data

The ability to gather and store more data influences the future of the healthcare industry and worldwide medical community at large. This is especially important during times like these. Not only technological advancements help the medical community get more data from every patient, but they also store it safely to prevent privacy issues, corruption, or manipulation.

Predictive Analysis and Data Sharing

Data management best practices may focus on security, but accessibility also matters from a use perspective. By using collective cloud storage possibilities and focusing on an increasingly global response to this pandemic and other health issues that affect people all around the world, medical researchers and other experts can use technology to improve their responses in the future. Collecting, measuring, and utilizing data in AI systems could improve healthcare everywhere.

Impact of Covid-19 on Healthcare Data (Security & Privacy)

The increased digitalization of the healthcare system during a pandemic necessitates new types of data management and security solutions. First, this drastically increases the amount of data that needs to be stored. This includes not only things like patient records but also the type of data fed into AI and ML systems for analysis about spread of disease, geo-specific statistics, and emerging patterns that help stop Covid-19 and other infectious issues.

According to Sonia Randhawa, senior technology executive, “Healthcare organizations are seeing an accelerated shift to the cloud indicating tech leaders are comfortable placing crucial data and analytics there. As well, rapidly deploying new applications and innovations to improve clinical and IT workflows throughout the continuum of care”.

The days of relying on hardcopy stacked in the back rooms is rapidly coming to a close. Fueled by the unique issues surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, the days of relying on in the-person healthcare may follow. Instead of every doctor’s office and medical center reworking their entire IT infrastructure, the cloud offers security and accessibility well enough to maintain trust and data management flexibility.

From a patient perspective, data management affects the type of care they receive. When going to a doctor’s office carries a higher degree of risk, telehealth and similar distance care has become more popular. Managing security for sensitive communications requires features that maintain compliance with all regulatory concerns like HIPAA laws and more.

Basic Data Security and Regulatory Compliance Tech Solutions

 Failure to maintain compliance with HIPAA laws or other privacy regulations can mean not only a complete breakdown of patient trust but also considerable legal issues for the individual or organization. Add in additional rules that cover security for personal identification and financial information, and systems need strong compliance tech solutions in place.

An independent certification protocol called HITRUST (Health Information Trust Alliance) has created a standardized framework test that makes sure technology in place complies with all HIPAA requirements. Many healthcare companies and organizations involved in digital data management and security use this as a compliance benchmark. Besides individual IT systems, different healthcare cloud environments leave this certification.

Although there are an increasing number of possibilities when it comes to ensuring safe data management for the healthcare world, they all require safe backups with encryption, ongoing improvements to counter emerging vulnerabilities, some type of independent monitoring to keep an eye on potential data leaks or breaches, and a way to respond swiftly any potential problems.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way many people receive healthcare services. It has also fueled innovative solutions for data collection, storage, and analysis to help in the fight against viral spread and to manage medical community’s response to it. A robust combination of security, functionality, and compliance with all privacy regulations constantly changes the focus of those pushing for better digital communications, telemedicine, and cloud storage options.

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