Elsevier

Dental Abstracts

Volume 60, Issue 3, May–June 2015, Page 121
Dental Abstracts

The Front Office
Securing electronic files

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.denabs.2015.03.003Get rights and content

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Background

Minnesota adopted the requirement for dentists to use a certified, interoperable electronic-health-record (EHR) system by 2015 to increase the level of care and decrease errors. The use of EHRs is designed to help in the wireless transmission of information, including sensitive health data. A number of issues accompany the electronic storage of patient health information or ePHI, including those related to the storage of and access to the data.

Storage Issues

Breaches of data have occurred in dental practices across the country, most often associated with burglaries. Computers full of unencrypted ePHI files have been stolen and the information disseminated across the world in some cases. Legally any time more than 500 ePHI records are stolen, both the media and patients must be notified. In addition, there are heavy fines for such data breaches and the practice’s reputation is tarnished.

Encryption Applications

Encryption refers to the conversion of data so it can’t be read without the appropriate key. This key is usually a software-generated algorithm that automatically scrambles the data, disguises the ePHI material, and thereby protects against breaches of confidentiality or malicious interference. Only the dental office would be able to decode the data, so files are secured.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) requires that all ePHI be encrypted whether

Mobility Issues

With respect to mobile devices, most have little to no security but they are an attractive part of providing patient care. The most secure way to ensure ePHI files stay safe while the dentist is mobile is to use a password-protected, HIPAA-compliant secure Internet interface. All sensitive communication should be done through a secure cloud platform. This allows access to sensitive data securely from any device at any time and anywhere. Such platforms are different from Dropbox or Gmail; these

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Laskin B: Data encryption: Count the acronyms. Dentaltown, Jan 2015, pp 26, 28

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