Phillip Mwebaza
According to an exclusive analysis from the BroadReach Group, the benefit of exchanging crucial health data across platforms and geographies to manage the worldwide spread of infectious illnesses as travel grows following the COVID-19 pandemic is emphasized.
The Broadband Group identifies three essential international standards that establish worldwide best practices for the protection of general personal information and personal health information.
“The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the USA and the private sector-led HITRUST Alliance,” revealed the advisory firm.
The BroadReach Group hosted a webinar to address competing goals in light of October’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month, focusing on how smart policies, considerate frameworks, and underpinning technology may support both data privacy and data sharing.
“The webinar covered the importance of health data ownership, data protection vs data sharing, and data residency, including personal ownership of health data, and public and private organizations’ challenges and responsibilities in keeping it safe and secure,” the Group announced in a release.
Dr. Farley R. Cleghorn, global head of health practice at Palladium Group, and Dr. Justin Maeda, principal regional collaborating centers (RCC) coordinator at the Africa Center for Disease Control (CDC), participated in the discussion as Ruan Viljoen, chief technology officer at BroadReach Group, served as its moderator.
“Health data is the most sensitive personal data we can store and warrants an even stricter duty of care. We should not put individuals in a position where they should have to trade their privacy in order to receive good healthcare,” said Viljoen.
The leaders also acknowledged that governments are the guardians of their citizens’ human rights and as a result, have the primary duty for protecting their citizens’ data, even if they recognized that the problem is complicated and that a multi-sectoral solution is required.
“Individuals need to take control of their health data. You should assume you have a right to that information, that you can control your information, and that you can use it for your own benefit,” highlighted Dr. Cleghorn.
They stressed that, at a time when cyber-security has grown increasingly crucial in healthcare as assaults escalate, governments might safeguard their citizens by disaggregating patients’ health data to make it impersonal and unrecognizable to third parties.
“Attackers are quite patient and look around – recent studies show that it takes organisations an average of 271 days before they detect that they have been breached, and another 70-odd days to rectify the situation,” highlighted the Chief Technology Officer.
He outlined how cyberattacks impair service delivery, which is harmful in the healthcare industry, and cause reputational and financial damage. He also said that it can take some time for a business to go back to normal.