Good news: as of January the nationwide EHR adoption rate for family physicians was at nearly 70%. The bad news is that non-adopters point to an increase in security risks for digital files as the reason why they continue to use paper health records.
But it’s actually paper records that leave your practice in serious threat of a security breach.
Although improper handling can leave both paper records and EHRs at risk, EHRs are simply an overall safer solution.
Several security advantages EHRs hold over paper records include:
Encryption
Anyone who can manage to access a set of paper records can read them. This makes the information in paper records highly vulnerable to even the most rudimentary of thieves.
On the other hand, the information stored in EHRs is usually encrypted. Files that have been encrypted can’t be read without a specific code. So even if thieves are able to access the data in your EHR, it will be indecipherable to them.
Internal Control
With paper records, anyone working in your practice could potentially access patient data and use it for malicious purposes. Unfortunately, there’d be no way of tracking exactly who accessed a particular set of records.
By tracking users, EHRs make it easy to find out who accessed a compromised file. The source of the breach can then be located and dealt with accordingly.
Data Backup
Paper records are susceptible to disasters such as fires and hurricanes. If your practice has to face one of these catastrophes, patient records are likely to be permanently lost.
Cloud-based EHR systems protect your practice in case of disasters by using off-site security centers to house protected health information (PHI). This ensures patient data will be safe and accessible in case of an unfortunate occurrence at your practice.
Although some believe paper is a more secure solution, it is EHRs that overcome paper’s shortcomings and leave you with a more secure practice.
If you’d like to chat about how our web-based EHR solution can protect your practice from security breaches, please contact us at 1-877-342-7517 or hello@carecloud.com.
A version of this article was originally published on our sister site, Power Your Practice. Click here to read the original story.
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