Data Breaches [Healthcare Compliance Tips]

Educate employees about data breaches and acceptable behaviors when sharing data.

A survey by Insider Data Breach asked more than 4,000 employees their thoughts on data breaches and acceptable behaviors when sharing data.

The survey found the following about employees:

• 60 percent: carelessness/rushing and making mistakes.
• 44 percent: general lack of awareness.
• 36 percent: lack of training on company’s security tools.

The rest of the survey states that employees who accidentally shared data was due to rushing and making mistakes (43 percent), high-pressure work environment (30 percent), and tired/not as careful (29 percent).

Here are a few suggestions to prevent employee data breaches:

• 60 percent: carelessness/rushing and making mistakes.
  • Teach employees to give their full attention to security awareness and ask that they double-check who they are sending information to. If you want to assist, create a security checklist.  Checklists are a great tool to protect patient data.

• 44 percent: general lack of awareness.
  • Consider adding role-play to your training sessions. Employees may lack awareness because they need to see real-world examples, such as phishing simulations (you send a fake attempt through email).  During the role-play evaluation, use what you learned to create additional trainings that are specific to the employee’s weaknesses or for creation of policies/procedures.

• 36 percent: lack of training on company’s security tools.
  • Ensure your employees are trained on security tools that apply to their job duties. When employees are trained thoroughly on tools they actually need this will combat data breaches. We suggest you perform annual training with frequent updates.

It is easy to blame the employee but it starts with management providing the knowledge and tools to prevent data breaches.  Once your employees are trained accordingly on the policies and procedures, then you can place sanctions to protect your practice.

**The opinions and observations from the group/author are not a promise to exempt your practice from fines and penalties.  Research, modify, and tailor the advice to fit your specialty.