Question

For this assignment, I want you to evaluate at least three categories of data that could be found in a healthcare organization and to determine the relative value of that data to an outside attacker. Categories of information could include health history, scheduled procedures, lab test results, medication record, payer information (e.g. Insurance, Medicaid, Medicare info), personal information (including birthdate, address, ssn), or others.

Indicate the following for each of the three categories you choose:
1. Type(s) of harm that could occur from breach: reputation, financial, health related, other (include at least a 2-3 sentence explanation for each type of harm that may result)
2. Impact of the harm on the individual: low, med, high (Include a 2-3 sentence explanation. Minor inconvenience would be low. Death would be high.)
3. Impact of the harm on organizations: low, med, high (Include a 2-3 sentence explanation. This could include both the healthcare organization and any other organization that may be impacted financially (e.g. credit card companies) or otherwise by the breach.)
4. Impact of the harm on society: low, med, high (Include a 2-3 sentence explanation. If only a few individuals are harmed then the impact on society would be low even if the impact on the individual might be high.)
5. Difficulty of the attack: low, med, high (Include a 2-3 sentence explanation. How hard do you think it would be for an outside attacker to access this information? Feel free to use your current organization as a point of reference for your answer. For example, if no one in your organization has access to outside websites, then the difficulty of attack might be much higher.)

Answer 1

The three categories that has been chosen by me are health history, lab test results and payer medication record.

ANSWER 1) Breech in the health history may effect the reputation, financial and health status. In many cases, the health history may contain certain data like patient is a smoker, alcoholic which is not considered to be a good habit by the society. Thus it effects the reputation of the patient. Health history may often contain certain information which can effect the patient financially. Like the health history to have HIV/AIDS may lead to deployment of the patient as it still have existing social system attached to it. So such informations should hold its confidentiality.

b) Lab tests results contains may details regarding their existing diseases. Breech in any information can cause harm to reputation of the client and also effect him financially resulting in loss of job or social interactions. Example: HIV and other STDs. The breech in the lab test results may effect the patients mental health status as the consequences may result in social withdrawl and depression.

c)Breech in Medication record can also result in harm effects on reputation, finance and health status. There are various medications whose intake is considered to be sign of shame in the society. Example: anti psychotic medications. If a person who is taking medications for depression or sleeplessness may be considered as mentally ill due to intake of that particular medication. Breech in medication record can be misused by the another person who want to cause harm to the patient. The data related to use of antiepileptic drugs, antipsychotic drugs can result in social withdrawl and poor work performance which may effect the patient financially.

ANSWER 2) The impact of harm from breech in health history may be of different intensity.It may place harm to the patient's reputation and financial condition which can be a low impact. Whereas some people can utilize the health history of the patient to threathen him or may misuse it to place legal implications on him which is the medium impact of harm from breech. The depression and isolation resulting from breech of health history may lead to suicidal ideation which is a high impact on the patient.

b) Breech in lab test result causing harm to the reputation of the patient is a low impact, the harm to patient at his work place caused by discrimination and rejection is medium impact whereas breech of lab test information and alteration of the result is a high impact on the patient.

c) Breech in medication record details which may cause harm to patient's reputation is low impact. If this act leads to alteration in medication regimen by someone who wants to harm the patient is a medium impact. Developing sideeffects or death resulting from change of medications or suicide due to depression from breech of information is a high impact.

ANSWER 3) The breech of health history, lab test results and the medication record may result in lost of trust and confidence on the healthcare organization. The reputation of the organization is effected and thus the patient turnover, hospital admissions will also reduce. This would place an overall impact on the organizations productivity and quality of care. So the financial status of the organization is brought down as the patients are its actual customers.

ANSWER 4) The health related information is considered as strictly confidential and the risk for breech and being used by the unauthorized user to cause patient harm is high. The society can also be effected as these information can be misused by people who may create epidemics by manually spreading the causative agent among society. It may be for financial upliftment, psychological disturbances or a business motive. It may effect only a few people like a certain age group (especially children)or may effect the majority of people in the society.

The history may contain information related to intake of certain medications like anticoagulants which may effect the lab test results. Ex: the patient taking clopidrogrel, warfarin will have a varied coagulation profile than compared to the one who is not on these medications. In many cases, the payer organization donot cover the patients who already have a history of certain diseases. Ex: Insurance companies do not pay health coverage for the events that occur related to already existing history of hypertension or diabetes.