One of the most important features of many electronic medical records is security of confidential patient data. However, that may not stop nosy medical staff of snooping.

According to a survey by Veriphyr (which interviewed 90 IT managers), a whopping 70% of medical practices reported a breach of patient information within the last year. And most of the breaches were committed by employees. In fact, 35% of those employees have snooped into other employees’ medical records, and 27% has snooped into records of family and friends.

In the past, if an employee needed access to someone’s paper medical records, that request would have to be made through the person in charge of records. Now, with EMR, the employee would simply find the data with a few clicks.

The survey highly recommended not just employee authentication (such as restricting access) but employee monitoring and compliance.

Other notable survey findings include:

*          Detection of data breaches was not as timely – 30% of breaches were detected in a one-to-three day time frame, whereas 17% of breaches were uncovered within two to four weeks.

*          79% of practices do not have adequate controls to prevent and report breaches – and they were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about this.

*          But 47% plans on making improvements on this within the next year.

For more information on EMR, please download our white paper “Electronic Medical Records: Choosing the Best System for Your Practice.”

Tags: EMR