As more and more physicians adopt electronic health records, many individuals have expressed concern about the security of the systems used to store and transfer this data. However, a new report suggests that these people would do well to place their worries elsewhere, as healthcare websites are much more secure than those of many other industries.
After reviewing the security measures of 3,000 websites from 400 different organizations in a variety of industries, researchers from WhiteHat Security found that healthcare sites tend to be the most secure, according to Healthcare IT News.
Social media and retail sites tended to be the most vulnerable of the various industry websites analyzed. Compared to these types of sites, healthcare networks had a far shorter "window of exposure," as the researchers put it.
The federal government recent concluded a comment period regarding potential changes to HIPAA regulations for privacy. These rules are being updated to reflect concerns raised by the growing use of electronic health records and will be part of requirements from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT for becoming eligible for the incentive program.