Healthcare Organizations Struggle to Manage Security Incidents of "Regulated Data"

PORTLAND, Ore., March 31, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- There is a new reality facing healthcare organizations in maintaining the privacy of patient information. The Ponemon Institute's Fourth Annual Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy and Data Security, sponsored by ID Experts—announced earlier this month—reveals what's keeping healthcare organizations up at night. The list includes the myriad of complex regulations and expanding threats to regulated patient data. The new risks—resulting from the Affordable Care Act, criminal attacks on healthcare security up 100 percent, employee negligence, unsecured mobile devices rampant in the workplace, and lack of trust of business associates—are bewitching, bothering, and bewildering HIPAA covered entities and their privacy, security, and compliance officers.

Security Incidents are an Every Day Occurrence
"Security incidents have moved from a 'some day' occurrence to an 'every day' occurrence. Organizations have accepted that they cannot avoid data privacy incidents and as a result, they are moving away from ad-hoc incident management towards an operational model," said Mahmood Sher-Jan, vice president and general manager, who now heads up the RADAR product unit for ID Experts. "However, organizations are finding that existing case management and GRC platforms are not adequate for this task. Data incident management requires software like RADAR that is purpose-built with deeply embedded regulatory knowledge of data breach regulations."

Complex Notification Laws Create Organizational Gap
Security incidents involving patient information are high: 90 percent of respondents of the Ponemon study had at least one data breach over the past two years. The web of complex and inconsistent federal (e.g., HIPAA, GLBA) laws and state breach notification laws around managing regulated data is creating a gap in organizations who need consistent, repeatable, and scalable processes and software tools but lack them today, according to the latest Ponemon findings.

According to Gartner, organizations must "Develop an enterprise-wide regulatory compliance capability that is aligned with strategic, as well as operational imperatives. Include initiatives to capture incentives as well as comply with regulatory compliance details."[1]

RADAR Operationalizes Data Incident Management
RADAR is the leading purpose-built software product for assessing and managing security incidents of regulated data. Since its launch in 2011, RADAR has been trusted by prominent healthcare, insurance, financial services, and information organizations to simplify data incident management. Based on its built-in knowledge of federal and state breach notification laws and regulations, the patent-pending RADAR Regulated Data Disclosure Engine™ empowers organizations to conduct multi-factor and multi-jurisdiction incident assessments. Guiding organizations through a series of clear, direct questions, RADAR analyzes risks to determine if incidents are notifiable data breaches or not, so that when an incident is a data breach, deadlines and compliance are met.

"RADAR is like a regulatory compliance decoder ring.  It unravels the complexities of managing regulated data incidents and disclosures and helps you stay compliant and measure your compliance practices," sums up Sher-Jan.

More information on RADAR is available at http://www2.idexpertscorp.com/RADAR. A video explaining RADAR is available here or http://bit.ly/1eFFKvV.

About ID Experts
ID Experts provides software and services for managing the disclosure and breaches of regulated data. Leading organizations in healthcare, insurance, financial services, universities, higher education, and government rely on ID Experts' patented RADAR™ data incident management software and data breach response services for managing risks. Exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association. ID Experts is an advocate for privacy and a leading contributor to legislation and industry organizations that focus on the protection of PHI and PII. On the web: http://www2.idexpertscorp.com/.

[1] Gartner, Business Drivers of Technology Decisions for Healthcare Providers, Zafar Chadry, M.D., Steven Lefebure, et al., December 26, 2013.

SOURCE ID Experts