The Struggle for Data Compliance

We are now in a time where data compliance and security law is tighter than ever. Audits are common and those who put patient data at risk receive punishment for carelessness. A recent industry survey showed shocking levels of non-compliance, mostly born from a lack of proper infrastructure.

 

The Struggle to Maintain Data Security

The report from Aberdeen Group supported by Liaison technologies surveyed 360 enterprises across the healthcare industry. Hospitals and clinical practices especially were found to have failed on some basic data compliance issues all relating to security and data privacy of patients. Just 65% (that’s 234) were fully compliant, leaving 130 falling short of minimum standards.

As far as HIPAA compliance, around 85% were reported having hit their targets during the survey. That’s higher than general data protection but 50 of the 360 were non-compliant. One of the biggest issues was that most organizations surveyed claimed at least one data breach. These occurred despite awareness and greater budgets allocated to the issue within the healthcare industry and despite the infrastructure requirements.

 

The Lack of Strategy May be the Problem

The report concludes that the problem may be due to a lack of enterprise-wide solutions. With a requirement to appoint a Chief Data Officer, not enough is being done to encourage all employees to become their own data guard.

• Compliance is complicated and full of pitfalls that can lead to breaches.
• Systems for data compliance are currently “immature” according to most of those surveyed while maintaining the highest maturity based on architecture and systems (suggests a lack of investment).
• Results of attempts to make a system or enterprise compliant with HIPAA and other data protection laws are presently ineffective.

 

Outsourcing May be the Solution

It’s likely that the problem of non-compliance is not born out of lack of experience of understanding of the issues, but infrastructure. Today in the modern environment of big data backed up with robust data protection laws, it’s more important than ever. Enterprises must ensure client and customer data is protected. Human error cannot be entirely eliminated. However, outsourcing core sections of your data – particularly record retrieval and storage, major threats of data breaches are removed.