Top Health Care IT Trends for 2012

The health care sector will be one of the most active areas in all of IT in 2012. With the advent of electronic health care records and greater enforcement of compliance rules, the pressure on health care IT professionals is going to rise exponentially in 2012.

The folks at ID Experts, a provider of data breach security and compliance management tools, have put together a list of some of the things IT health care professionals should specifically be watching for in 2012.

Click through for 12 trends health care IT professionals should watch in 2012, as identified by ID Experts.

Health care organizations will not be immune to data breach risks caused by the spread of mobile devices. One survey says less than half of health care providers are securing mobile devices.

Patients are suing health care organizations for failing to protect their personal information. 2011 already saw several class-action lawsuits for organizations, some of which involved business associates.

The misuse of social media by employees will increase, as will the risk of exposure of personal information.

Privacy and legal issues abound, such as compliance with HIPAA privacy and security regulations. There also needs to be a discussion about allocation of liability when a privacy breach occurs.

 

Sixty-nine percent of organizations that participated in the Ponemon study have little or no confidence in their business associates’ ability to secure patient data. Third-party mistakes account for 46 percent of data breaches reported in the study.

After a breach, patients often seek out different medical providers.

Nearly one-third of health care providers use mobile devices to access electronic records. Providers will need to balance usability, preferences, security and budgetary concerns.

The focus over the next year will be on the 150 HITECH Act audits and publication of the final rules implementing HIPAA modifications. Expect a sharp uptake in financial settlements and fines in 2012.

The majority of breaches are caused by human error, rather than technology failures.

During hard economic times, there are more fraudsters and opportunities for them to gain or keep a health care benefit they are not entitled to.

When a health care organization or other HIPAA-covered entity suffers a data breach, the cost can be damaging not only to an entity’s bottom line, but also to the reputation of its brand.