Five best practices to protect patient privacy from insider threats

Due to the sensitive – and therefore valuable – patient data they hold, healthcare organisations have long been a highly attractive target of external security threats. That vulnerability was historically highlighted during the 2024 breach of Change Healthcare, the largest data breach ever reported. As a result of the attack, the protected health information of some 190 million individuals was compromised, and business operations were severely hampered.

But it’s essential to keep in mind that external threats are not the only risk at hand. In fact, insider threats account for the majority of all data breaches. Whether they stem from malicious acts, snooping, or errors, insider threats by inherently trusted staff with ready access can cause the most trouble. And the ripple effects of that trouble extend beyond patient privacy issues to an organisation’s operations, reputation, and financial health, including hefty HIPAA fines and penalties. Plus, it opens the door to the erosion of all-important patient trust. It’s clearly a growing concern that requires prompt attention and action. 

What do the numbers say?

While healthcare organisations are making progress in combating insider threats, there’s clearly more work to do. Recent data underscores their need to advance security by implementing robust insider threat programs. According to the 2024 HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Survey: 

• 26% reported that their organisations have fully implemented formal insider threat programs 

• 26% indicated their programs were only partially implemented 

• 33% of respondents stated that their organisations do not have a formal insider threat program 

• 15% reported that they did not know whether such a program exists 

Patient privacy protection best practices

Establishing a culture of security, privacy, compliance, and patient trust requires a strategic, comprehensive approach to ensuring appropriate data access. As part of this effort, here are five best practices to help reach that goal.

Expand the care team to support digital health

Clinicians are obviously a vital part of a patient’s care team. But so are IT, compliance, and privacy. For instance, IT teams help clinicians deliver high-quality care by enabling secure, friction-free access to patient data. And compliance and privacy teams’ diligence helps protect the privacy of patients and their highly sensitive data. 

Emerge from the manual quagmire

While budget and resource constrictions often lead to reliance on manual approaches to protect patient data, it can be a recipe for disaster. Given the sheer volume of data that needs to be reviewed, a manual approach is time-consuming, fraught with inefficiencies, and creates a significant opportunity for things to fall through the cracks. 

Ensure positive patient identification

The better and more complete the data is at the beginning, the more likely it can be protected throughout the care journey. And that starts during the intake process. The growing use of biometric patient identification ensures a 1:1 connection between patients and their records, helping to avoid misidentification that can lead to medical errors.

Employ an AI-aided, automated privacy solution

A comprehensive, automated solution – powered by AI and machine learning and featuring risk intelligence and behavioural analytics – provides many valuable capabilities. Among them are proactive monitoring for suspicious activity, anomaly detection, user access searches, plus investigative and reporting support for compliance requirements. 

Educate staff through ongoing training and awareness

Making training and awareness integral components in patient privacy protection is imperative. That includes thorough training for new employees on your access policies and HIPAA requirements, plus refresher training. In addition, employees need to maintain awareness of the scope of their user access, as well as your consistent access monitoring efforts.

Given today’s heightened insider threat environment, there’s no better time to take action to safeguard your patients’ data, your reputation, your bottom line, and the trust you’ve worked hard to gain.

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To learn more and find out how proven Imprivata solutions protect patient privacy, visit our website, which includes real-world peer case studies.