As the world economy was grinding to a halt due to Covid-19, we saw an increasing interest in digital healthcare.
The inability of suppliers to access healthcare providers and the drastic reduction of patient traffic is fundamentally reshaping industry-wide perceptions of digitisation.
While we welcome this evolution of thinking, hours of meetings with healthcare providers have also uncovered clear risks. Before sharing the two most common risks, let's start with the stakes.
Approximately 96 per cent of IT professionals believe cyber-attackers are outpacing the security of medical organisations.
Moreover, 93 per cent of healthcare providers have experienced a data breach of some kind (according to Black Book Research).
According to IBM's annual Cost of a Data Breach, healthcare organisations incur the highest cost of a data breach of close to US$6.5 million. The rise of digital healthcare will undoubtedly be met with increasing governmental scrutiny over data encryption and storage.
In the United States, wilful neglect of patient data privacy standards has a maximum penalty of US$1.5 million. In Malaysia, non-compliance to the Personal Data Protection Act can lead to over RM100,000 in penalties and up to three years in prison, and the list goes on.
While government watchdogs might currently be focusing on bigger organisations, they will inevitably make their way to the smaller fish. But, do rest assured that there are some simple first steps to start moving towards safety.
In research done recently, we found that over 90 per cent of producers and clinicians use WhatsApp and email as their main tools for communication.
They exchange patient images, names, diagnosis, and in some cases even citizens service numbers. We've personally seen clinicians scroll through biblically long chat threads where they discuss all their orders.
In many cases, laboratory technicians were just numbers ("+852-1234-5678") as they weren't saved by the clinician due to their sheer number. In other words, if we had a dentist's phone number and knew their producer name, we could probably get easy access to patient data.
Interestingly, the issue with these mainstream messaging solutions is not just how clinicians and producers use them. Using these solutions – without third party encryption – is illegal all together! So, while it might be convenient, think twice before messaging your partner and producers through the same app.
There are solutions for this niche market audience. In the market, there are workflow solutions for an order management system that optimises fulfilment for both the orthopaedic and dental industry.
It is hard to build your software on your own and it is best to leave it to the experts for that state-of-the-art order management system. The world seems to be changing at a dizzying pace, but one thing is for certain, healthcare digitisation is inevitable.
This pronounced trend also puts us in increased danger of active and passive threats. The world is struggling with the rise of active threats such as hackers and computer viruses which can ravage your data (and capital).
The least we can do is to address these issues and make sure that passive threats are mitigated. By being more responsible about how we transfer and store our data, progress is within reach.
The writer is a Sarawakian and Marketing Manager at Intrinsik Technologies, a SaaS company specialising in the healthcare industry