Data privacy in healthcare has seen a significant shift in its environment in the last two years when the world was undergoing a pandemic. As we shifted our focus to online transactions and interactions, a huge amount of private information was uploaded on on-site, cloud, and third-party systems. With sharing of information online and data exchanges becoming more digitized, data protection in healthcare has taken the center stage. There has been a global development in reviewing health data privacy bills, especially with the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other health data privacy laws. Even with the significant incentive on data privacy legislative laws, there are still amendments to be made to the data privacy bills in US healthcare.

Although it has been observed that regulatory actions for data privacy have reached a national level, it still is lagging behind the tech market improvements. Various sectors are implementing standardized and ground rules to improve their health data security standards for better patient data protection. Healthcare organizations and businesses are aiming toward processing personal data while still maintaining the patient’s or individual’s privacy preferences.

The digital healthcare sector has also been growing rapidly and its demand has been ever increasing. Leaders in the industry are keeping in mind the key concerns that are legally up and coming this year. The cybersecurity and privacy of patient data in healthcare include more than the HIPAA regulatory concerns. There is an ever-growing heterogeneous requirement for federal and state privacy laws that are being simultaneously applied in the healthcare space to prevent cybersecurity threats.

Significance of Data Privacy in Healthcare

Data privacy in healthcare entails the correct way of handling and protecting sensitive patient data from various cybersecurity threats. Data privacy also helps in the management, storage, and sharing of data with third-party vendors with appropriate compliance in place. Data security and data privacy work in tandem to create data protection in the healthcare area focussed on the right individuals. Usually, data privacy is comprised of three specific elements, it includes:

Healthcare data compliance applies to the laws involved in data protection.

The patient or individual can retain control over their data and information to avoid being misplaced or forgotten.

Data privacy assists to collect, process, handle and sharing personal data and procedures.

An effort to create global awareness revolves around the significance of data privacy in healthcare. These efforts have highlighted simpler ways to help people protect their health and medical information, while also assisting organizations to remember that protection of patient health information is equivalent to good business. Therefore, digital health has improved and increased data protection of patients at a personal and professional level. As data protection in healthcare becomes a powerful asset to business owners of healthcare organizations, it helps to maintain transparency when requesting consent and approval to keep patient data by upholding privacy policies and managing the data that is collected to build better patient-provider relations. Any non-compliance can result in legal cases for healthcare organizations. Healthcare app developers are also utilizing this data privacy in healthcare in building patient-oriented apps for better care delivery services.