Nearly 30 years ago, in 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) became law and the right to health information privacy in the U.S. was born. Needless to say, there have been a few changes in the healthcare and technology spaces since then. The intrusions on what’s considered private data are beyond what anyone would have believed at the time of passage.
Before we explore the issue of patient data privacy, it’s important to differentiate it from another major data-related issue in the industry – cybersecurity. While the two issues are related – a cyber breach can result in the exposure of critical patient data – cybersecurity has much broader implications, such as interference with hospital operations.