Strengthening Data Security in Healthcare with DSPM

Healthcare organizations manage a vast amount of sensitive patient data, from medical records to personal and financial information. This sensitive data is not only highly valuable to hackers but also subject to strict data privacy regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). As a result, healthcare institutions face unique challenges in ensuring robust data security and maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements.

The State of Healthcare Data Breaches in 2023:

The urgency for enhanced data security measures in the healthcare sector has never been greater. In 2023 alone, healthcare data breaches affected over 40 million patients, marking a staggering 60% increase from the previous year. On average, each breach exposed 150,809 records, while the median breach size stood at 4,209 records. This increasing vulnerability has manifested in several notable breaches:

• PharAmerica and its parent company, Bright Spring Health Services Incorporated, disclosed suspicious activities in March.
• Managed Care of North America (MCNA) underwent a significant breach between February 26 and March 7, 2023.
• HCA Healthcare released a concerning statement that its compromised data list contains around 27 million rows of data, implicating information from approximately 11 million HCA Healthcare patients.

These incidents underscore the criticality of evolving our data security strategies to effectively safeguard sensitive patient information.

To address these challenges, healthcare organizations must adopt a comprehensive Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) strategy that focuses on monitoring, managing, and protecting sensitive patient data throughout its entire journey. In this blog, we will delve into the crucial role of DSPM in securing healthcare data, discussing how Dasera's innovative data security platform provides the necessary tools for healthcare organizations to strengthen their data security posture and maintain compliance with industry regulations.

Dasera's industry-leading DSPM platform helps healthcare institutions take a proactive approach to data security, ensuring continuous visibility, monitoring, and enforcement of data protection measures while minimizing potential risks. By automating data security and governance controls across healthcare environments, Dasera enables organizations to enhance data protection, ensure regulatory compliance, and improve patient trust in today's digital healthcare landscape.

Omada Health's Data Security Transformation: A Glimpse

Omada Health, a virtual-first chronic care provider specializing in cardiometabolic diseases, represents a stellar example of how innovative solutions can address healthcare data challenges. With the majority of their data stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in S3 buckets, RDS instances, and Redshift databases, Omada Health grappled with the challenges of tracking data sprawl and leakage, enforcing security controls, and cumbersome manual governance processes.

However, with the integration of Dasera's platform, Omada Health's data governance transformed. Bill Dougherty, CISO of Omada Health, noted, "Before Dasera, we would take up to 2 weeks to answer certain data-related and data security-related questions. With Dasera, it takes us 5 minutes." Now, Omada Health efficiently monitors its 250 connected data stores and 41 billion sensitive records, ensuring that sensitive healthcare data remains protected and compliant.

In the following sections, we'll explore the unique data security challenges faced by healthcare organizations and discuss how a DSPM strategy, powered by Dasera's advanced platform, can strengthen data protection and compliance in the healthcare sector.

Addressing Unique Data Security Challenges in Healthcare

Healthcare organizations face a myriad of unique data security challenges due to the sensitive nature of the data they handle, including electronic health records (EHRs), medical imaging, and patient demographics. This valuable data is a prime target for cybercriminals, and a single data breach can significantly impact patient trust, organizational reputation, and lead to regulatory penalties.

Dasera's Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platform is designed to address these unique challenges healthcare organizations face by providing comprehensive visibility into data access and usage across their systems and applications. With real-time monitoring and advanced analytics, Dasera helps uncover potential vulnerabilities and risks, allowing healthcare institutions to take preventive action and strengthen their overall data security posture.

Ensuring HIPAA Compliance with DSPM

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) enforces strict data privacy and security standards for healthcare organizations, ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of protected health information (PHI). Failure to comply with HIPAA can result in substantial fines and penalties, along with reputational damage.

Dasera's DSPM solution streamlines maintaining HIPAA compliance by automating the enforcement of data privacy and security controls. By integrating with a healthcare organization's existing systems and applications, Dasera can quickly identify and enforce the necessary safeguards, ensuring ongoing compliance with regulatory requirements and minimizing potential risks.

Implementing Granular Access Controls and Auditing Capabilities

Securing healthcare data requires strong access management controls to restrict unauthorized access to sensitive patient information. Healthcare organizations must also maintain a robust auditing process to track and monitor data access, usage, and sharing throughout their systems.

Dasera's DSPM platform simplifies the process of implementing and enforcing granular access controls across healthcare organizations, ensuring that only authorized users can access sensitive data. Additionally, Dasera offers comprehensive auditing capabilities, enabling organizations to maintain a complete audit trail of their data, enhancing transparency, and facilitating timely detection and responses to potential breaches or misuses of information.

Safeguarding Patient Data in Telemedicine and Mobile Healthcare Applications

With the rapid adoption of telemedicine and mobile healthcare applications, healthcare organizations must now extend their data security measures beyond traditional EHR systems. Protecting patient data in these emerging digital channels is crucial for ensuring ongoing patient trust and maintaining regulatory compliance.

Dasera's DSPM solution enables healthcare organizations to extend their data security capabilities to telemedicine and mobile healthcare applications by providing continuous visibility into data access and usage, as well as enforcing data protection controls. By ensuring robust data security across all touchpoints in the patient-care continuum, Dasera empowers healthcare organizations to respond effectively to the evolving landscape of digital healthcare.

Enhance Healthcare Data Security with Dasera's DSPM Solution

The healthcare industry faces unique challenges in protecting sensitive patient data and maintaining regulatory compliance. By embracing a comprehensive Data Security Posture Management strategy powered by Dasera, healthcare organizations can effectively safeguard their sensitive data, address compliance requirements, and foster patient trust in an increasingly digital healthcare landscape.

Dasera's innovative data security posture management platform provides healthcare organizations with the necessary tools and insights to manage and strengthen their data security posture proactively, ensuring the protection of sensitive patient information across all channels, from traditional EHR systems to telemedicine and mobile healthcare applications.

Partner with Dasera to secure your healthcare organization’s data and navigate the complexities of data security and compliance within the healthcare industry with confidence in knowing you have a trusted ally dedicated to protecting your most valuable assets.