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Fax vs. Email Debate in Clinic Practices

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Jean Eaton in Blog

Which is safer to send personally-identifying information – by fax or by email?

Sending information by the (now old-fashioned) fax uses telephone technology, which is its own type of encryption – it is a direct message between the sender and receiver and is often the more secure communication solution. (Note – many fax services are now using fax to email technology which, for this article's purpose, is handled more like email.)

Email is not automatically encrypted – it is not in a code that can only be read by the sender and receiver. It is easy to forward email messages from the intended receiver to someone else or to another type of mobile device (smart phone, forwarded to another email address, multiple computers), and can be saved in many different locations. There is a greater risk of the information going to the wrong person or kept in more than one place – which creates a greater risk to the security of the information.

If you send clinical information by email referring to ‘Client J' instead of full identification, you create 2 new potential problems. If you have not completely and accurately identified the client in your clinical notation, it probably doesn't meet the standards of practice of clinical documentation. If you send a message to another provider about ‘Client J', it is likely that:

a) Someone other than the intended receiver will be able to identify the person of interest. This means that you may be sharing the client information with someone not authorized to receive it – for example, the email may get printed and left in an area that is not secure and be seen be someone not authorized to see it. This privacy breach will be, in part, the responsibility of the sender of the information – you.

b) If the information is sent without full identification, and the receiver makes an error in matching the information to the correct individual and takes further action – like notifying the client of the new action plan that may not be appropriate for them – you have potentially compromised the privacy and confidentiality of the original client and contributed to an error to the second client.

c) If the intended receiver is away, the email message might be overlooked or there may be a delay in response – which might be a delay in client service. In a fax world, there is usually more than one person assigned to monitor the incoming faxes.

 

Convenience

Poorly managed fax communication is one of the most frequent sources of privacy breaches. Even though email is now commonly available, it doesn't mean that it is any more secure than faxes. Sometimes, convenience can create more security problems!

Keeping client information confidential and secure is a key requirement in clinical practices. Whatever methods you use, you need to ensure that you have well documented policies and procedures that meet your profession's standards of practice and legislative requirements. You need to identify the risks and strategize how best to mitigate or minimize those risks.

email, email and patients, fax, healthcare

Do you link your phone to your gmail account?

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Jean Eaton in Blog

Google has access to WiFi passwords stored in Android mobile devices http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/17841/laws-and-regulations/goolge-ac…

Accepting defaults on your android phone – or accepting offers to link to your gmail account contact lists to ‘share' with your contacts your latest purchases, games you liked, or LinkedIn or Twitter comments – is a huge privacy risk.  And, in my opinion, far too easy to accept a pop-up window without realizing that you just granted permission for the program to access all your contacts.  (See my earlier post, Is Your Email Secure.)

Do you really need to use Gmail or other free email service providers for your business email service? If this causes a privacy breach, how ‘free' is the service?

email, gmail

Is Your Email Secure?

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Jean Eaton in Blog

Mon, 08/19/2013 – 09:07 — jean

Is your email secure? Backed up? If you suddenly lose your email, calendar, or contact list, this could either be a speed bump in your busy day, or a nightmare that may take days or weeks and a lot of money to recover.

If you use email as temporary communications or your primary method of business, it needs to be managed securely. When you or your staff use email from multiple devices – such as your desktop computer, smart phone, or website – you have additional privacy and security requirements.

Many small businesses have purchased an email software system like Outlook as part of their desktop software. Unfortunately, recent software updates from Microsoft do not include Outlook; you are encouraged instead to purchase MS Office 365 software where all of your email is stored on the MS Cloud.

Some businesses use free email accounts – like gmail or yahoo – where emails, calendars, and contact information is on the public cloud. It is accessible from any internet connection but is difficult to back up to a local device that you can control.
If you use email to transact business – employee records, business contacts, company newsletters, subscriptions, financial or consumer purchases, or personally identifying messaging – you need to meet privacy and security requirements.

Previous versions of Windows Server Small Business Server (SBS) edition included Microsoft Exchange so small businesses could create their own in-house email server. This is not included in Windows Server 2012 Essential (SBS replacement). But small businesses still have a few options:

Buy the Microsoft Exchange Server full licenses, although it can be quite expensive
Sign up to Office 365 which is a hosted / cloud based Microsoft Exchange service from Microsoft with email hosted in the USA. Offices will need to determine their level of risk using personally identifiable information in emails – including sensitive information like credit card, payroll, health information, and other sensitive content – which will be stored out of Canada and subject to US legislation and uses.
Contract with a Canadian hosted Microsoft Exchange service with a Canadian based cloud service provider. This might be a cost effective solution and permit full access to email in an environment which is backed up and more easily accessible.

There are many features offered with a hosted email service:

Collaboration is easy as you have access to group calendaring and scheduling, shared contacts, folders and calendars, tasks and task delegation, as well as public email folders.
Fully functional email software.
Sync capabilities to your smart phone without worrying about viruses, spam, or malware, and mail archiving is automatic. Store as much or as little email as you need and do so without dealing with annoying ads.
Anti-phishing, anti-virus, and malware software are attached to each email connection.
No data ‘left behind' on the device – all data is securely maintained in the hosted email. If a mobile device is lost or stolen, business email is not compromised.

You can apply business rules – for example, emails can be prevented from being forwarded to an employee's home gmail account. Employees can securely work from home.
All business data is maintained by the business. So if your employee wins the lottery and doesn't come back to work, all business emails have been maintained in the hosted email and not on an employee's home computer.
Data is encrypted during the internet transmission.

To get a Hosted Email, you will need internet access with a data plan. You can continue to use your desktop computer and its cable internet access. When you use mobile devices, you can use your mobile provider data plan (Rogers, Bell, Telus, etc), or connect to a trusted WiFi connection.

You are still responsible for good security practices at your location including:

Unique user ID and password on your computer network – including mobile devices – and
Good password management – complex passwords that are changed regularly
Physical safeguards to ensure that your work locations – including mobile locations – are secure from theft

Common sense awareness – don't open suspicious phishing or spam emails

Business-class Microsoft Exchange email hosting services mean you're always in touch and up-to-date, in the office or on the road accessing your mobile email.

Things to look for in a hosted email solution vendor:

Canadian provider with data centres only in Canada (Alberta preferable)
Reputable company with proven track record
Contract including:
Termination clause – when the contract terminates, the vendor will:
Notify you in advance of termination
Allow local back up of your data or data transfer
Validate that your data has been completely and securely deleted from the data centre
Encrypted at the data centre – no one at the data centre can read your information and it is secure from someone else hacking into the data centre to steal your data

Confirm your backup plan for your email accounts.  If you don't have one, create a plan.

INFORMATION MANAGERS
We are an information management company based in Edmonton, Alberta. We specialize in health information management, records management, practice efficiency and workflow consultation as well as privacy and security in the Health Care sector.
We take care of the elephant in the room.

Alberta, backup, best practice, breach, business associate, cloud service provider, computer network, email, external hard drive backup, health information, healthcare, hosted email solution vendor, privacy, SBS, security, Windows Small Business Server

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