Beating out hackers, vendor error, data theft and stolen hardware, healthcare professionals report human error as the greatest threat of a HIPAA breach to their organizations, according to a new survey.
The survey of 700 healthcare providers, conducted by Scrypt, an Austin, Texas-based document management and delivery company, found that 76 percent of respondents are concerned that staff and human error pose the greatest risk for a breach of HIPAA compliance.
Here are five important findings from the survey.
- Of survey respondents, 82 percent reported exchanging protected health information outside of the EHR or practice management software by electronic fax along with other methods. This was followed by encrypted mail combined with other methods at 42 percent, and manual fax combined with other methods at 27 percent.
- Of survey respondents, 69 percent reported that recently publicized breach cases have not affected their organizations' HIPAA compliance policies. Another 21 percent said their policies were somewhat impacted and 10 percent reported definitely being impacted.
- In order to prevent HIPAA breaches, 81 percent of respondents report using HIPAA compliant software. Of survey respondents, 77 percent reported conducting regular staff training and 42 percent said they conduct user audits.
- Of survey respondents, 73 percent report using staff meeting to keep team members informed about changes in HIPAA compliance. This was followed by emails, Intranet and notice boards.
- Of survey respondents, 62 percent reported they think more money from HIPAA fines should be reinvested in improving patient data security.