Around 30 per cent of healthcare providers have had cases where their employees compromised their customers’ personal information during remote consultations, according to research from Global Kaspersky.
Kaspersky surveyed healthcare decision-makers around the world to gain insights into current security-related telehealth issues and find solutions and found that a third of clinicians have had their patients’ data compromised when conducting remote telehealth sessions.
Nearly half of providers believe their clinicians do not clearly understand how patients’ data is protected. But 67 per cent believe it is critical for the healthcare sector to collect even more personal information in order to advance industry development.
According to research, only 17 per cent of healthcare providers are confident that the majority of their clinicians who conduct remote sessions have a clear understanding of how their patients’ data is protected. In the UK, 29 per cent of healthcare providers believe that the majority of their clinicians who conduct remote sessions have a clear understanding of how their patients’ data is protected.
Physicians believe that data collection is one of the most important aspects of medical technology development. Almost seven out of ten or 67 per cent respondents agree that the industry needs to collect more personal information than it currently has in order to train AI and ensure a reliable diagnosis.
Arztkonsultation CEO Peter Zeggel says: “Telehealth applications are specifically designed and certified to safeguard sensitive personal data. Bypassing this high level of protection means risking loss of trust, disciplinary measures and heavy fines. Those who fail to put the right tools in place, could also violate billing requirements for telehealth and miss out on purpose-built telehealth features, such as integrations for patient records or the safe sharing of live data from remote devices.”
INSEAD affiliate professor of strategy Chengyi Lin says: “To accelerate the evolution of digital health, we have to carefully curate, manage and govern sensitive health data. This information is also valuable to individuals and the healthcare system to improve outcomes and reduce costs. We have already seen encouraging results from using big data for better clinical trial design and reducing both time and costs. We can leverage technologies to ensure privacy while delivering the benefits, for example, using additional privacy measures to facilitate the adoption of AI.”
Kaspersky head of academy Denis Barinov says: “The more complex and critical technology is, the more awareness it requires from people who work with it. This is particularly important for the healthcare industry entering the new digital stage and increasingly facing issues connected to privacy and security. But it’s not only about awareness – for any security training to be effective, it should not only deliver up-to-date information but also inspire and motivate people to behave safely in practice.”