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Unique Software For Identifying Protected Health Information

Protecting oversensitive information and data has become a necessity. PHI is a sensitive information being protected by HIPAA Of the USA. The healthcare sector developed specialized software to manage PHI. Through this software they can protect patient privacy also.

What is Protected Health Information (PHI)?

PHI(Protected Health Information) consists of some sort of sensitive data. It is used to identify a patient, their health condition, payment for numerous healthcare services and treatment. PHI consists of a wide range of data sets and they are as follows.

  • Name of the Patient
  • Medical records
  • Insurance data
  • Social security numbers
  • Contact Information

All you need to do is protect and identify PHI data is critical to prevent all sorts of data breaches, maintain patient trust, and ensure compliance as a whole.

Why it is critical to Identify PHI?

If somehow you fail to protect PHI data, it can often lead to serious consequences for all kinds of healthcare providers. Some of the severe consequences that you need to face consist of reputational damage, legal penalties, and loss of patient trust. If PHI data is saved within your documents, emails and other digital assets then it is safe. But if through automated PHI identification software, you can save the data that can significantly reduce the risks of human error and improve compliance with privacy regulations as a whole.

Types of Software to Identify PHI

To deal with protected health information, numerous software programs are available to aid organizations in abiding by healthcare regulations like HIPAA. These tools are designed in such a way that they automate the detection of sensitive information and mitigate the risk of exposure. Some of the software that are commonly used to identify PHI are as follows.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Software:

This software prevent unauthorized transmission of PHI data, and its access. Further, it scans data at rest, in motion, and use. It also identifies PHI in cloud storage, endpoints, and emails. However, you also need to block or flag PHI-related security incidents.

Content Inspection Tools:

The basic purpose of this software is to scan documents and data for PHI markers. Further, it recognizes patterns like social security numbers, medical record numbers and birth dates. Even it uses NLP to detect the overall context. It generates reports on where PHI is located.

PHI Detection Software with Machine Learning (AI/ML):

The purpose of this software is to identify PHI with the aid of advanced algorithms. With the aid of this software, you need to learn from data patterns just to improve accuracy. Also, detect contextually relevant PHI beyond fixed patterns and minimize false positives.

Text Mining and Data Extraction Tools:

The major purpose of this software is to extract PHI from unstructured data sources like emails, PDFs, and clinical notes. Through this software, you can identify sensitive data across numerous formats. Even convert unstructured data sources into structured data sources and analyzable content. Further, it helps in data classification.

Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems with PHI Scanners:

The major purpose of these integrated tools within the EHR system is to flag PHI. Through this tool, you can automatically identify and label PHI during data entry. Make sure that your PHI is encrypted and securely shared. Also, try to track PHI usage and access.

Key Features to Look For within PHI Software

In other words, PHI identification software comes with a wide range of features, to aid healthcare organizations in managing sensitive data securely. Some of the key features of PHI identification software are as follows.

Automated Data Detection:

At times, the most advanced PHI identification tool takes help of machine learning and NLP processes to automatically detect PHI in an unstructured and structured way.

Data Masking and Redaction:

With the aid of this tool, you can automatically redact or mask PHI in documents, emails, and databases just to prevent unauthorised access.

Integration with Existing Systems:

The PHI identification software is designed in such a way that it can seamlessly be integrated with electronic health record system, document management platform, email servers to ensure that your data is comprehensively protected.

Compliance Reporting:

The PHI identification tool provide detailed compliance reports that aid organization to track their data protection efforts and ensure regulatory compliance as a whole.

Role-Based Access Control:

To enhance security, these software comes with an unique feature known as role based access control. Through this unique feature only authorized personnel can view or edit PHI at once.

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Benefits of Using PHI Detection Software

As you know that organization in the healthcare industry handle large amount of sensitive patient data. They take aid of PHI identification software which offer huge benefits by increasing security, following regulatory compliance and increasing operational efficiency. Some of the benefits are mentioned as below.

Ensures HIPAA Compliance:

PHI identification software aids most organizations to humbly comply with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and HITRUST by detecting, protecting, and classifying all sorts of sensitive patient information. Some of the benefits of it are as follows.

  • It prevents costly fines and penalties for noncompliance.
  • Also, ensure data privacy policies are enforced.
  • It helps to maintain audit trails for compliance reporting.

Reduces Risk of Data Breaches:

The PHI software is designed in such a way that it detects PHI across numerous systems, and reduces the risks of accidental exposure to all kinds of malicious attacks. When you identify PHI, organizations can take steps to protect it from unauthorized access. Some of the benefits of it are as follows.

  • Minimizes the risk of costly data breaches.
  • Try to prevent all sorts of insider threats and unauthorized sharing.
  • Figure out the situation where sensitive data is stored, transmitted and shared.

Improves Data Visibility and Management:

PHI identification software can seamlessly scan unstructured and structured data across multiple environments to provide a clear view of where PHI is exactly located. Some of the benefits of it are as follows.

  • Enhance data inventory and classification.
  • It helps to locate dark (hidden or forgotten PHI).
  • Streamline the process of managing sensitive information as a whole.

Some of the popular PHI identification software that can aid healthcare organizations and related businesses to safeguard their sensitive patient information are as follows. These tools generally vary in their features and some of the highlighting ones are as follow pattern recognition, machine learning, encryption, and compliance reporting.

Amazon Macie:

It is a cloud-based software that uses machine learning to identify and protect sensitive data including that of PHI across AWS environments. Some of the key features of it are as follows.

  • Automated detection of PHI in S3 buckets.
  • Integrates with AWS security tools.

Google Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP):

It detects, classify, and anonymise sensitive data. Sensitive data consists of PHI across the on-premise platform and even google cloud services. Some of the key features of Google DLP API are as follows.

  • It scans both structured and unstructured data sources.
  • At the same time, identify PHI even in text, images and databases as a whole.
  • Also, it offers data masking and tokenization.

Microsoft Purview:

It is a data governance platform that has built-in capabilities to track and protect sensitive information like PHI across Microsoft environments.

  • It tracks data across emails, files, and databases.
  • Automatically label and classify PHI.
  • It provides encryption and compliance reporting.

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Challenges and Best Practices of PHI Identification Software

As we all know, the implementation of PHI software can therefore enhance data protection, but also comes with challenges that organizations must address at once. Below are the key challenges that are faced by organizations who are deploying PHI identification tools and best practices to overcome them.

Conduct a Data Audit:

One of the best practices is to conduct a thorough data audit and identify all locations where PHI is stored and shared within the organization.

Choose the Right Software:

You should choose the right software and select a solution that aligns correctly with your organization’s specific needs and regulatory requirements as a whole.

Train Staff:

You should make sure that all of your employees understand the importance of PHI protection and how to use the software efficiently.

Regularly Update the Software:

Always keep your PHI identification software updated so that it can detect newer kinds of sensitive information.

Monitor and Report:

Try to monitor your data protection effort and generate reports to track compliance at once.

AI-Powered PHI Detection:

Heavy reliance on Artificial intelligence and machine learning leads you to identify PHI more efficiently and accurately. The future PHI detection software will utilize contextual AI to understand the meaning of text rather than relying solely on keyword-based detection. Further, these models will improve by learning rapidly from user feedback by minimizing false positives and negatives at once. Impacts

  • Enhanced accuracy in identifying sensitive information.
  • Manual intervention stopped.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Unstructured Data:

PHI is found in unstructured data formats like free-text medical notes, and emails. Future PHI Identification software will use advanced NLP techniques to extract PHI from all of these sources. Impacts

  • Effective processing of clinical notes and medical records.
  • Broader coverage across diversified data types.

Privacy-Preserving Technologies (PPT):

Integration of PPTs like differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, and federated learning will become a standard within PHI software. Further, differential privacy ensures datasets remain anonymous even when PHI is extracted. It allows the model to train across numerous institutions without sharing actual PHI. Impacts

  • It enhances both security and data privacy.
  • Remain compliant with evolving privacy regulations.

Examples of protected health information

Healthcare Referral Management Platform:

Medvoy appears to be a secured healthcare referral management platform through which you can track patients through a comprehensive continuum of care. To better the experience of this platform for its patients, the company aimed to create a reporting and referral management platform. Here they aimed to incorporate features like referral management, appointment scheduling, reporting, EHR integration, business intelligence and also analytics. With the aid of this platform, you can schedule appointments online, store medical records of all kinds, and facilitate direct communications with healthcare providers through the secured messaging system. Through this platform, patients can share ratings, feedback, and reviews, and enhance the overall patient experience. At this juncture, Intellectyx conducted a thorough analysis of the existing platform, workflows, and technologies. It is a HIPAA-compliant referral management platform with a robust business intelligence layer and visualizations. This solution simplifies electronic referral tracking provides a visual representation of referral data, and quickly integrates with the EHR system, ensuring evidence-based workflow for improved healthcare management as a whole.

Concluding Thought

In conclusion, it can be said, that identifying and safeguarding protected health information is a critical responsibility for all kinds of healthcare organizations. Therefore you need a specialized kind of PHI identification software, through which organizations can enhance their data protection efforts, ensure regulatory compliance and build trust among patients. Therefore you need to choose the right software and follow best practices for implementation, it can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches and improve the overall security.

Explore our unique solution for identifying and securing PHI today!

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