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SharePoint healthcare security

Healthcare Data Security Made Easy with SharePoint

The healthcare sector recognizes the critical importance of protecting its most sensitive information: patient data. It is not just a priority; it is an obligation. Due to increasing regulatory commitments such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and increasing cyber threats, there are many pressures on healthcare organizations to protect their data. Microsoft SharePoint is a reliable, secure, and flexible solution designed to help healthcare organizations manage, store, and protect sensitive information. With SharePoint, healthcare organizations can enforce strong data access control without sacrificing team collaboration.

Why Data Security is Important to Healthcare?

Patient data includes a bevy of sensitive information including personal identifiers, medical and family histories, insurance information, and treatment plans. This data is deserving of the utmost confidentiality. A single breach of data can be detrimental — a breach can damage the reputation of a healthcare provider and can expose the organization to substantial legal cases and costly penalties. In addition, a breach can result in loss of trust from patients due to mishandling of their data, which may impact the quality of care patients receive and threaten the sustainability of the organization. Therefore, organizations must implement protective data security measures to ensure patient privacy and regulatory compliance.

How SharePoint Protects Healthcare Data

Granular Permissions Control

SharePoint enables healthcare organizations to implement strict access controls at the site, library, folder, or document level. Control over permissions helps ensure that sensitive data is only accessible by authorized personnel, greatly reducing the chances of internal data leaks or accidental exposure.

Encryption

SharePoint also improves data security with encryption at rest and in transit. Patient data is protected no matter where it is located – in SharePoint’s cloud environment or in transit between cloud servers.

Audit Trails and Compliance Reporting

SharePoint’s logging capability creates an audit trail by reporting who accessed or modified documents, and when the access or modification occurred. These reports can help healthcare organizations transparently and accountably satisfy regulatory compliance requirements, including HIPAA.

Secure Collaboration

Healthcare teams often need to share documents internally, or with external partners such as specialists or insurance. SharePoint enables secure sharing with the ability to control permissions, utilize document versioning, and enforce temporal expiring access, thus enabling secure collaboration without sharing sensitive data.

Integration with Microsoft Security Tools

SharePoint works seamlessly with Microsoft’s broader security ecosystem, including Microsoft Defender for threat detection and Azure Active Directory for identity and access management. These integrations provide an extra layer of defense against cyber threats, enhancing the platform’s overall security posture.

Use Cases in Healthcare

Patient Record Management
Healthcare providers can easily save and manage electronic health records (EHRs) in SharePoint libraries, which provide controlled access and simple retrieval of records while protecting the patient’s privacy.

Medical Research Collaboration
Research teams that are conducting sensitive studies benefit from SharePoint’s secured document management capabilities, that allows collaboration among departments or organizations without disclosing any sensitive information or risking data exposure.

Regulatory Compliance Documentation
Healthcare organizations have to maintain all regulatory compliance-related documents (or records) such as audit findings, manual of policies, training certificates, etc. within a centralized and secured library. SharePoint provides versioning, so organizations can keep records up to date—and the records are easily retrieved in inspections.

Training and Policies
Healthcare organizations are able to distribute current training and security policies out to all of their employees securely; the organization can track employee completion and compliance from within the platform.

Best Practices for Securing Healthcare

  • SharePoint Data Security Regularly Review and Update Permissions: Regularly review and refresh user permissions (access rights) so only those who need access have it. This creates a reduced risk of insider threats.
  • Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Adding an additional identity validation process provides another layer of protection if a user is compromised.
  • Use Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Policies: Setup DLP rules to mitigate accidental sharing of sensitive or confidential information by identifying and stopping the sharing of this information outside the organization.
  • Staff Cybersecurity Training: Staff within the healthcare sector should be educated on cybersecurity best practices, in addition to how to safely access and use SharePoint, as a way to reduce risks associated with human error.
  • Continuous Monitoring: Utilize the audit logs in SharePoint as well as security software tools built within Microsoft to help look for unusual or questionable activity to help respond promptly and effectively to potential threats.

Conclusion

Healthcare delivery organizations face unique and challenging data security situations. Thankfully, Microsoft SharePoint provides a full arsenal of security tools that make share sensitive healthcare data more secure and easier to keep track of. Utilizing granular permissions, data encryption security, audit trails of access, and compliance with Microsoft’s security programs we can ensure our patient privacy is protected while also promoting collaboration between healthcare providers and operating more efficiently. As part of your healthcare data security strategy, utilizing SharePoint solutions gives your organization the best chance to meet regulatory requirements and public expectations of protected health information and maintain patient trust in an increasingly digital hospital.

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