The health apps that pull patient data from electronic health record systems are vulnerable to hacks, it is said by the new report. Electronic health records themselves which are housed at health centers are subject to the federal privacy law HIPAA are well protected.
The patients gives the permission for their data as soon as to leave the health record and head towards the third party App these are like programs that track people medications e.g it is easy for hackers to access.
For the hackers, the hospitals and health care systems are major places and attacks have only escalated over the past few years. The health data of the patients is the most valuable information for the hackers and the each record can be worth hundreds of dollars on the dark web.
The credit cards numbers can be easily changed and the only worth a few dollars. The cyber security analysts can checked for the vulnerabilities in health apps built using Fast Healthcare interoperability resources standard. It can set up to encourage the information exchange in healthcare.
Third party applications and data aggregators are important for healthcare, they can help doctors and patients by pulling health records into more accessible formats and they aggregate the information from different Appointments into one place. Health and human services department has riled that encourage the health systems to make sure they can talk each other electronically.
It is important to give people access to their own health information and help doctors coordinate care. There needs to be more care and security around those applications, once data leaves health record and enters a third party application it is not covered by HIPAA so it is not subject to HIPAA standards around data protection or on people, that should be notified if their data is accessed.
The third party do have to notify users about data breaches but commission can’t be added on additional privacy or security regulations for those apps.The need to be some separate oversight mechanism to protect patients and apps that they can use.
