How to Secure Healthcare Data Using Biometrics?

The global healthcare industry has now shifted towards the usage of EHR (Electronic Health Record) systems rather than keep using the old pen and paper-based medical record entries.

There are many benefits of using EHRs such as quick retrieval of patient data, getting accurate information about his/her health, easily coordinated and highly efficient care system, easy healthcare data sharing of a patient, fewer medical errors, and better environment to prescribe medicines fastly to the patients.

However, these benefits cannot be achieved by the patients if the hospitals and its members can’t accurately use modern technology that is being used in healthcare infrastructure. 

Additionally, many more healthcare institutions have raised an issue of data privacy especially, with biometric technologies. Today, in this article, we are going to discuss biometric IT solutions for the healthcare industry in USA!

In some previous years, many healthcare stakeholders have focussed on improving patient identification technology by using third-party text-based algorithms that match the demographic data by using first name, DOB, and addresses.

It then filters the patient data from the record and presents the patient’s medical history to the physician!

But, nowadays the technologies equation with healthcare is changed in many terms. It is now more towards the biometrics. And with biometrics data in usage, the fear of it getting stolen, forged, exchanged, and duplicated is high.

Today, in our great nation America, we have different forms of a biometric identifier like thumb scans, retinal scans, face scans, fingerprint scans, etc. 

As a result, biometric healthcare data management is said to be a more conducive form of physical identification. Accessing patients based on their unique biological traits like face, iris, fingerprints, voice though ensures an effective global healthcare environment, puts the data at risk.

Today, we will answer, “How to Secure Healthcare Data Using Biometrics?”

Introduction To Secure Healthcare Data & Biometric Technology

Biometric security technologies may appear to be a futuristic upcoming tech, however, it has started taking shape in these current unprecedented COVID-19 times.

Today for the patients in America, asking a smart speaker to help in the daily dosage of medicines is basic use, but in the healthcare institutions, it is very different.

Also Read: Healthcare Technology Trends To Watch Out In 2019-2020

In hospitals and clinics, biometric tools are offering quick benefits such as easy identification and check-in process, records access and management; to ensure that patients get proper treatment by the right teams at the right times

"Still 64% of healthcare professionals had to say that the misidentification seriously happens with this biometric technology and around 20 million US dollars monthly loss is incurred by healthcare organizations."

The method is also helpful for the strictly regulated process of electronic prescribing for managed substances. It is an easy, fast, and tremendously secure manner for prescribers to complete two-aspect authentication.

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“It is estimated that the healthcare biometrics market is worth $14.5 billion by 2025” 

The major reason behind the growth of this market is the health information exchange, that allows the healthcare institutions to share data in those times where cyberthreats, fraud elements, and cybercrimes are high. 

Top healthcare organizations and institutions see biometrics as their advantage!

Uses Biometric Technology In Healthcare Data Management

Northwell Health is the largest and biggest healthcare provider in New York State, USA. In 2018, biometric scans such as iris and facial recognition technology were made to integrate into the various hospital systems.

The process is very simple same as taking photos for ID. People are already used to it and hospital organizations are working closely with IT businesses to make the process more personal.

Also Read: Importance Of IT Software Solutions In Healthcare Industry

The “first-rate users” of biometrics rent more than one measurement. The system, which has seen approximately 50,000 patients participate, may one day add voice reputation as an introduced layer of identification.

Most patients are keen to apply their fingerprint to test in for comfort and security, which is a brilliant example of how we are aiming to make the consumer revel in extra personalized, coordinated, and connected.

Biometric Scans Healthcare Data Collection Privacy Concerns

Biometric authentication is surely the most secure method to verifying a consumer, but it also comes with a host of privacy worries that may limit person acceptance, consistent with a CDW white paper on identification and access management solutions.

Audiences might be hesitant to take part in fear their statistics will be misused for other purposes. It is a general thought!

“A 2018 survey from the Center for Identity in the University of Texas at Austin revealed that 58% from 1000 respondents sense very snug with fingerprint recognition era; while about 33% were comfortable with other forms of biometric generation.”

Employers and healthcare providers, CDW notes, can alleviate some worries via adopting a strong privacy coverage that in reality, states what biometric statistics could be collected and strictly limits the usage of that data for authentication purposes only.

Northwell Health, for one, has trained a team of workers to give an explanation for the era to patients. Still, developing consumer choice for healthcare tactics to imitate the reports of hospitality and retail is supporting nudge the transition.

A custom software development service provider in USA, therefore, must take care of the collected healthcare data, whether it is by biometrics or is filled by the patients itself!

The Future of Biometrics In Healthcare

As biometric technology will become more common, with the usage in the healthcare data collection, the user comfort will grow, and the cost of technology will go down. 

Furthermore, these biometric identification tools in the coming years will play a more concrete role in the development of healthcare infrastructure.

According to the 2018 report from biometric software companies, the biometric one day will be used for multifactor authentication, where individuals will be able to log in to the online portal via fingerprint scan rather than using a password. 

Also, it is said that the biometrics will bring more security for the telemedicine tools. Moreover, many other comprehensive applications will get introduced to identify customers and their medical records, even by using CCTV and IoT devices.

Wait for the times when the clinics will introduce better treatments to the patients as they are doing with the healthcare applications! Also, there will come many opportunities when the healthcare facilities will use AI - Artificial Intelligence! 

With this much of trending alerts of telemedicine, AI uses in COVID-19, biometric data security, etc. one thing is sure, healthcare and biometrics, both have a great future ahead!

In case if you have plans to develop healthcare applications, you must contact top mobile app service providers in USA!

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