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Privacy and Security in Health

Jerkayla Watkins

The University of Alabama

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Introduction

With the increase use of technology in today’s society, social media creates huge

potential for public health research. The use of social media in health care promotion and

wellness has taken research to another level. According to researchers, the issue with digital

privacy and security in the workplace has been an ongoing concern for many employers.

Problems arise anytime media is involved in work place environments, which is leads to

confidentiality, privacy, and ethical issues amongst employers. Despite the great advantages that

technology brings to public health research, digital security and privacy remains an ongoing

issue for public health professionals.

Privacy Concerns in Public Health Research

Health and wellness promotion is growing significantly due to the use of digital

technology in the workplace (Mitra, Mihaylo, Padman, & Heinz, 2012). The emerging and

adopting of health plans and provider organizations are creating a mobile media platform to

empower patients (Mitra, Mihaylo, Padman, & Heinz, 2012). With the use of technology and

smart phones, patients can access their patient portals online or through a mobile app. This new

invention has created a significant increase in health and wellness goals amongst patients (Mitra,

Mihaylo, Padman, & Heinz, 2012). Tons of private information is shared continuously through

various database systems in healthcare making it a major target for criminals and hackers.

However, public health professionals are always looking for more ways to enforce digital

security protection.

Security Issues in Healthcare Research

Today, technology and social media is integrated in almost every aspect of the work force

increasing the demand for greater security protection. Recent research shows an increase of
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technology use amongst public health professionals when communicating with employees and

patients (Househ, Borycki, & Kushniruk, 2014). Problems are arising when individuals’ personal

information is being introduced into software systems for research (Rathmore, Sharma, Loia,

Jeong, & Park, 2017). Several authors have presented many possible defense solutions to secure

social network services in public health research. Researchers propose a promising future for

security protection in the workplace, particularly in the healthcare field (Househ, Borvcki, &

Kushniruk, 2014). In the meantime, employers are striving to update and educate employees on

the importance of ensuring confidentiality in the workplace. The healthcare field is changing at

such a fast pace making it a bit more challenging to resolve those security issues in a timely

manner (Hunter, Gough, O’Kane, McKeown, Fitzgerald, Walker, McKinley, Lee, & Kee, 2018).

Most importantly, public health professionals are working together to provide the upmost

security and protection in public health research.

Room for Improvement

Although, public health professionals are striving to provide the upmost security and

protection to patients and research participants, there are still current issues that must be handled

in a timely manner. There are ethical issues that arise when volunteer research participants enter

healthcare research. It is crucial that researchers are aware of informed consent and minimizing

harm while conducting research (Hunter, Gough, O’Kane, McKeown, Fitzgerald, Walker,

McKinley, Lee, & Kee, 2018). Primarily, the patient privacy and confidentiality should be

protected at all times during the process in healthcare research. According to researchers, a few

ways that professionals could minimize security and privacy risk are: being aware of unsafe web

browsers, ensuring no one can obtain their employee passcodes or access, and completely

logging out of their databases when not in use. Even though are state of art defense systems in
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healthcare settings, it is essential that employers keep security and privacy breaches to a

minimal.

Conclusion

The increase use of digital tool and social media across the healthcare spectrum is

challenging public health professionals to enforce security and privacy protection for employees

and patients. Researches are finding numerous ways to resolve the major threats that arise in

healthcare research. Employers are also working together to seek strategies to educate and

encourage employees to develop interventions avoiding privacy and security threats. Public

health researchers are concerned that participants volunteer levels will decline if there are too

many confidentiality and security threats in research. So far, there has been a significant decline

in volunteer participants and researchers are hoping to keep it this way.

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References

Househ, M., Borycki, E., & Kushniruk, A. (2014). Empowering patients through social media:

The benefits and challenges. Health Informatics Journal, 20(1), 50.

doi:10.1177/1460458213476969

Hunter, R. F., Gough, A., O'Kane, N., McKeown, G., Fitzpatrick, A., Walker, T., & ... Kee, F.

(2018). Ethical Issues in Social Media Research For Public Health. American Journal Of

Public Health, 108(3), 343-348.

Mitra, S., Mihaylo, S. G., Padman, R., & Heinz, H. I. (2012). Privacy and security concerns in

adopting social media for personal health management: a health plan case study. Journal

Of Cases On Information Technology, (4), 12. doi:10.4018/jcit.2012100102

Rathore, S., Sharma, P. K., Loia, V., Jeong, Y., & Park, J. H. (2017). Social network security:

Issues, challenges, threats, and solutions. Information Sciences, 42143-69.

doi:10.1016/j.ins.2017.08.063