As stated in the NIST 800-66r2 document: “The ePHI that a regulated entity creates, receives, maintains, or transmits must be protected against reasonably anticipated threats, hazards, and impermissible uses and/or disclosures.”
The document provides updated and crucial implementation guidance for HIPAA-regulated entities to proactively protect patient data and identify and manage ePHI risks. As the de facto standard for best practice, NIST 800-66r2 directs organizations to have an incident response plan for all areas in which ePHI is being used, stored or shared.
The first step to achieving this is to identify all of the places and so-called junk drawers of ePHI outside of the electronic health records system. Healthcare organizations can’t manage what they can’t see. They must first identify and inventory ePHI in order to protect this data from cyberattacks. That’s where a unified cloud-native applications protection platform can help.
Healthcare organizations seeking to modernize their cybersecurity approach should consider an AI-powered data security platform that can help identify and inventory ePHI. Traditionally, this is done by archaic rules-based systems made even more complex because over 80 percent of healthcare data is unstructured.
Healthcare organizations can leverage AI-powered solutions to manage and identify ePHI, reducing risks and saving costs. Those that have found success with such solutions report minimized risk against cyberattacks, fewer resources needed to manage data and lower cyber insurance premiums.
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