Healthcare and Insurance
Data Protection

Healthcare data is protected by their administrators balancing delivering quality patient care while adhering to strict privacy regulations such as the United States’ Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Therefore, the guidelines for healthcare providers and other entities that access, use, or transfer patient information include strict data protection requirements. Breaches, ransomware, or third parties unlawfully accessing PII and PHI could result in significant penalties and fines.

Yes. According to the National Law Review, “Unlike HIPAA, which only protects the privacy of an individual’s ‘protected health information,’ GDPR applies broadly to all categories of health or other data regarding an individual. Personal Data is ‘any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person’ who is in the EU, regardless of the individual’s EU citizenship status.”

Healthcare data privacy refers to a provider’s process for protecting their patients’ health information, including how they keep it secure against breaches from bad actors. It also incorporates the rules and regulations ensuring only authorized individuals and entities access PHI.

Healthcare data compliance is a process that ensures the governance applicable for the healthcare data’s security, storage, protection, as well as other activities. It establishes protocols, procedures, and policies that help to fully protect against cybersecurity threats, malware, and unauthorized access and use.

NIH defines a breach in data privacy of healthcare as “Illegitimate access or disclosure of the protected health information that compromises the privacy and security of it.”