Mobile device usage is growing rapidly in the healthcare industry. Recent studies have shown that many surgeons and medical device sales reps are going mobile in their daily jobs to help improve their productivity.
Smartphones and tablets have enabled surgeons to easily capture and share patient images to improve overall care. Sharing complex cases with colleagues or resident surgeons had previously been done via email or phone conversations. The goals of sharing this information have remained the same — to educate on best practices and/or gain the insight and perspectives of peers.
What the mobile revolution has created is a new playing field, empowering surgeons to capture images of X-rays, MRIs and CT scans on their mobile devices and share these over a wider network online. No longer are surgeons confined to their own four walls inside the hospital. They can network, share, collaborate and facilitate – all from a handheld device.
Has this innovation opened up the Pandora’s Box of risk? Personal health information (PHI) is sacred in healthcare, which is why stringent regulations and compliance requirements exist to define what can and cannot be shared. Mobility has created holes in what has traditionally been considered a secure industry.
The costs associated with a breach of PHI are high. According to the Fourth Annual Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy & Data Security, healthcare employees are fueling breach risks with the increased use of their personal unsecured devices (smartphones, laptops and tablets). The vast majority of Business Associates—those that have access to PHI—are not yet in compliance with the HIPAA Final Rule. While the cost of a HIPAA breach can range from less than $10,000 to more than $1 million, the Ponemon study shows that the average cost for organizations represented in this year’s benchmark study is approximately $2 million over a two-year period.
And so we see this ongoing struggle, between surgeons who are adamant about being able to use their mobile devices thanks to the significant productivity gains and IT and Risk officers who need to ensure that their hospitals aren’t at risk of hefty fines. But there can be a meeting of the minds. IT and Risk can continue to learn about how their employees are using their personal devices while continuing to educate on the potential security risks and how to avoid them.
As a provider of a medical image sharing and collaboration platform for surgeons and medical device companies, you can imagine how seriously we take HIPAA compliance and PHI regulations. Our system ensures hospitals and medical device companies are safe from risk. If you are considering a communication or image collaboration system, here are five things to make sure you know:
If you’d like to learn more about our medical image sharing and collaboration platform and how HIPAA compliance plays into our technology at eRounds, we’d love to hear from you.