Good care depends on patient/doctor confidentiality In health care, privacy goes back thousands of years to the Hippocratic Oath. The health care profession realized, even then, that the ability to provide care to individuals requires that the interactions between physician and patient remain confidential. Privacy enables trust, and trust is at the core of providing care. If that trust is absent, there can be negative consequences to the health of a patient, as they may not seek the treatment they need. Once privacy is breached, trust is eroded Unlike breaches in other industries, where you may be able to reimburse an individual after a breach, it is not possible to compensate an individual for an irreversible breach of their privacy. Trust is eroded. Historically, the health care industry’s focus has been on regulatory compliance. The notion of security as a discipline that is separate from compliance is still relatively new. But as health care increasingly relies on technology as a means of providing care, security needs to mean more than basic guidelines on password length and not inappropriately sharing information. The growing reliance on technology exposes the health care industry to new threats that go beyond those that have traditionally been a concern to health care. “New and rapidly evolving technologies have also increased the stakes in that a breach may now involve thousands of records,“says Patrick Heim, Chief Information Security Officer, Kaiser Permanente. “Continuously adapting to changing threats and evolving technologies to manage risk and ensure patient privacy is the challenge we face in health care.” | 