A Different Kind of Health Hero
By Art Gross, President and CEO, HIPAA Secure Now!
Twitter: @HIPAASecureNow
Read other articles by this author
A Year of Heroic Feats
The healthcare industry has been called to task this year in ways that make them heroic in the eyes of the world. As a global community, words can’t accurately convey the gratitude they deserve from all of us.
Today we’re going to talk about another way, one that is less visible, but very important, in which healthcare workers are heroes of a different kind.
We put our most personal and private matters in the hands of people in healthcare. Medical diagnoses, conversations from therapy, how our most personal choices are made, and why, and these people are privy to them. This information is stored by them, protected by them, and maintained by them. We trust them implicitly and proceed ahead with various treatments and acceptance of remedies that we take without question, knowing that they have our best interests at heart.
This level of trust often goes often unacknowledged or unspoken, as we never really think to give props to the person behind the desk. Protecting our privacy and ensuring that HIPAA compliance is adhered to is a critical job and one that should be applauded. Too often we hear about the breaches and failures, but not often enough we hear about the people who are working diligently to ensure that smart cybersecurity practices are in place and that laws and rules are adhered to in order to protect our privacy.
To those who know how important it is to do more than change their passwords, log out, or not inadvertently share our secrets, we thank you. The medical professional holds the key to our health at the end of their stethoscope or medical device – and we are indebted to them so very much. But also important, and too often overlooked, is the person at the end of the keyboard who holds the key to keeping our private health information secure. And we thank you for realizing just how incredibly important this job is.
This article was originally published on HIPAA Secure Now! and is republished here with permission. HIPAA Secure Now offers annual online subscriptions to help covered entities and business associates keep up with compliance. Learn more here.
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