Mayo Clinic is an American nonprofit academic medical center focused on integrated patient care, education, and research. This past week patients have filed class-action complaints against the Mayo Clinic, accusing the healthcare organization of violating the Minnesota Health Records Act. In a news release in October, Mayo Clinic said that a former employee had inappropriately accessed the health records of more than 1,600 patients. Now, multiple patients are seeking to have a class-action case declared against the clinic.
How Does This Effect Business- Long Term?
Every year, stats show that the majority of data breaches in healthcare are due to human error, and cybercriminals continue to exploit this weakness. Despite the statistics, many businesses are still lacking in providing adequate security awareness training for their employees.
What Can Healthcare Organizations Do to Protect Patient Data?
As a healthcare organization, you need to invest not just in firewalls and anti-malware tools but also in continued security awareness training for your staff. A few reasons why you want to invest in security awareness training for employees are:
- Comply with HIPAA Compliance: Because employees have access to computer equipment or software containing PHI, the HIPAA security rule requires that you participate in HIPAA Security Awareness training to learn basic procedures on how to protect that information.
- Develop a More Security-focused company culture: Empowering employees with training and knowledge across your entire organization helps instill good security habits throughout the company. Communicating with your staff on additional cybersecurity measures in place helps better protect you from a breach.
- Prevent and Reduce Breaches, attacks, and downtime: Security awareness training helps educate your staff on how to spot a phishing attempt. Phishing attacks have increased by a massive 600% since the end of February, as bad actors seek to exploit the fear and uncertainty of the current moment.
Training should make all your employees feel responsible and accountable for the company’s cybersecurity. Everyone should ensure your organization does not suffer an attack due to human error. To achieve that, training should be continuous and regularly updated to account for the ever-evolving threats.
With Mayo Clinic in the news for this type of data breach, it puts all healthcare organizations on high alert. HIPAA Compliance is an ongoing process. As regulations and technologies change healthcare organizations need to ensure their systems are secure and your employees are trained to work with patient data. Our team of experts can partner with your organization to reduce the risk of you becoming a news headline for a data breach. If you are interested in learning more about how to stay HIPAA compliant, you can read more here or schedule a call with one of our cybersecurity professionals.
