In this webinar, Joel discusses the best practices that you and anyone on your team can follow to keep your patients and business safe from malicious online activity, and help you spot your biggest security vulnerabilities.
Emily Gable·
Are you storing more of your patient records digitally these days? You’re certainly not alone. Researchers forecast that “virtual healthcare interactions will reach one billion by the end of 2020”, which means that more patient information will be shared, transmitted, or hosted online than ever before. Luckily, there is a lot you can do to keep your digital patient records secure without overcomplicating your work life—and that's what Joel sat down to answer during this webinar!
During this live Q&A, Joel answered questions about online security and talked about the best practices that you and your team can engage to ensure that you're keeping your patient's confidential health information secure.
Some of the topics that were covered include:
How to watch out for scams, and make yourself less of a target. Hackers tend to target people that would be most vulnerable and likely to fall for their tricks. Don't let yourself be a target—improve your security!
Install security updates, on all of your devices. Whether it's your phone, your computer, your tablet, or even an app, install those updates! Not doing so will make your device more vulnerable.
Use strong passwords on all of your accounts. Consider what could be accessed if someone were to get ahold of your password, and act accordingly—basically, don't use the same password for different accounts, and think about using unique phrases that incorporate multiple words.
Set up 2FA (2-factor authentication) in as many places as you can. 2FA requires something you know (your email and password) and something you have (your phone). 2FA is the single most secure thing you can do to protect your account, because it requires that you have your phone with you—it's very unlikely that someone trying to access your accounts is also going to have your phone!
Encrypt your computers. If you lose your laptop, even if it's password-protected, the information could still be accessed. With encryption turned on, your data is going to be much safer.
Participate in safe web browsing. If a website doesn't have HTTPS as part of the URL, it's not secure. (Often, there will also be a little lock symbol near the URL to indicate that the page is secure.) Don't enter confidential patient information into any page that isn't HTTPS, as it's not secure.
Back up your data. Even with encrypted devices, strong passwords, and other security measures in place, this won't prevent data loss if your information isn't backed up! (That laptop might be password protected to the moon and back, but if you drop it in the lake, retrieving what was on it might not be possible.) While Cliniko handles data backup for you, if you're storing patient information outside of Cliniko, be sure you're backing it up on a regular basis!
Finally, it's important to do it all. While it takes some extra time to set up, ensuring you're taking all precautions to secure your patients' digital health information is very important. There really isn't any sort of wiggle room when it comes to data security—it's all or nothing.
When you’re working in healthcare, you can never be too careful with your patients health information. Here's the five things we recommend you do to keep your patient records as secure as possible.
We answered your questions about online security during COVID-19 on YouTube live. Check out the recording of the session with plenty of helpful information, plus links to the top tools we mentioned during the broadcast.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is one of the best tools you have to prevent unauthorised access to your online accounts. Learn how 2FA works and why you should be using it to protect your patients' privacy.
