How to effectively utilize email encryption is still a mystery to many within the healthcare industry who believe that the security method is difficult to use and time-consuming. Healthcare does focus on email security and HIPAA compliant email, mostly using filters and firewalls. But it is important to also focus on securing outbound email to mitigate human error even further.
At its basic level, email encryption is the disguising of an email’s content to protect sensitive data from exposure. Encryption renders a message unreadable by anyone besides the sender and the receiver, whether in movement or stasis. Earlier methods of encryption only worked with the use of extra passwords, plug-ins, and clicks. Some even asked employees to send emails through portals, rather than their existing work email. We go in more detail about secure email here.
The healthcare industry should be eager to use such cybersecurity to protect its sensitive data and provide a safe environment to share information for better patient care. The HIPAA privacy rule, in fact, encourages the use and disclosure of data for the proper care and treatment of a patient. Unfortunately, the numbers still demonstrate a lack of use. According to a recent U.S. survey, healthcare workers would rather not share data than do so securely because encryption is a nuisance. A Kickstand Communications survey further reported that 87% of its respondents use unsecured email to send sensitive information because current solutions are too cumbersome or non-existent. It becomes very clear that having a cumbersome encrypted email solution may increase the risk of a HIPAA breach.
Related: High-Quality HIPAA-Compliant Email Starts And Ends With The User Experience
Organizations can ease the work of IT and compliance departments by focusing on simple solutions for securing sensitive data. Paubox Email Suite focuses on the user experience as well as security. There are no extra steps as encryption easily integrates into an organization’s daily workflow. Employees can send and receive emails as normal with encryption working in the background to provide needed security.