Technological innovation has transformed our lives and ways of doing business and other daily activities. We can earn money online, pay utility bills, and learn new skills with smart devices. When it comes to healthcare organizations, the latest technological enhancements have incredibly improved the patients’ and practitioners’ experience. The healthcare industry has experienced a drastic shift towards adopting the latest tech tools, such as cloud-based solutions, to keep up with the increasing demands for eHealth service requirements.
The eHealth system advocates telemedicine concepts, which are also referred to as distributing healthcare information and services remotely through telecommunication technology, including long-distance clinician/patient contact, advice, care, reminders, education, counseling, monitoring, intervention, and remote admissions.
Although such a digitally advanced shift is a welcomed change for many patients as it renders convenience and flexibility of treatment, it also causes a specific challenge in cybersecurity that healthcare organizations must handle. Many IT professionals solve their security issues through an all-access, comprehensive approach to solid coding and secure execution. However, the key to outstanding Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance and ensuring optimal security with telehealth services and solutions is to categorize this access.
It is crucial to know for whom, why, and when direct telehealth access is required before providing it to suitable users. As this assessment is an essential step towards secure telehealth execution, as with any change, healthcare organizations should prepare themselves for a push-back by fabricating a cultural mindset of optimal security.
Why is Security Culture a Big Deal?
Over the past few years, the healthcare industry has faced significant and frequently reported data and cyber-security breaches worldwide. Coupled with the immense increase in ‘access points’ for protected health information (PHI) and telemedicine services, such as desktops, intelligent medical devices, smartphones, and tablets – digital security has become the most critical factor in the attempt to protect healthcare institutes.
With emerging security risks, healthcare organizations must be as flexible and resilient as the software and services they implement. 
Consequently, by designating an agile leader and keeping the essence of cybersecurity in mind, one can help any healthcare organization size jump to a digital culture where cybersecurity is of maximum consideration.
Partnership vs. Competition
Innovative technologies and intelligent software adoptions – including telemedicine execution – continue to spread rapidly throughout the healthcare industry. Jackson’s Healthcare Physician Trends 2016 Report estimation shows this intense desire for telehealth innovation. The worldwide telemedicine market will expand to over seven million users in 2018, with $36.2 million in 2020.
This widespread technological explosion makes collaborations and partnerships between organizations more critical than ever in cybersecurity history. Although cooperation and coordination between businesses can make the patient and health service provider experience more efficient, secure, and flexible, many healthcare organizations’ IT units still view such collaboration as a significant threat. However, conventional software and cloud-based providers are precious collaborators to a healthcare organization’s IT strategy – rather than competitors. Remember, when healthcare IT providers look at each other negatively, it can significantly harm any organization’s security and progress, causing a hurdle between the company’s goals and objectives to persevere and protect confidential information and data while transcending its competition.
In this scenario, champions of healthcare organizations in the IT department and cyber-security units will act and assess all alternatives while trying to leverage technology from numerous places to give their institute a considerable push to thrive and prosper.
Focus on Employee Education and Cyber-security Training
Even when your new software is ready to be used, and the IT unit has eventually viewed the light, it must be reinforced into the healthcare organization’s core. Thus, organizations must make employee education and awareness programs vital to their corporate culture, just like bookkeeping is essential to preparing financial statements.
Be Readily Prepared: It Usually gets Tougher before It Becomes Easier
As well-desired as this potential move in healthcare organizations to match the digitally evolving environment is, the change takes time and due diligence.
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