Did you know the UK's healthcare sector has seen a considerable rise in cyberattacks? In fact, healthcare organizations faced 81% of the total ransomware attacks. This is why redaction tools are needed to safeguard data in case of a breach.
Moreover, healthcare establishments must comply with government regulatory bodies and compliances. Failing to adhere can result in legal action, penalties, data breaches, and financial losses.
Fortunately, redacting data enables healthcare providers to fight against data breach attempts by redacting sensitive information.
Read on to learn more; however, if time is of the essence, jump right to our free trial (no credit card required).
Understanding Redaction Tools in the Healthcare Sector
What does redacting mean in the healthcare industry? It means masking sensitive data in medical records, including PHI, PCI, and PII, among other identifiable information.
Redaction tools have become pivotal as they automatically rid videos, audio, images, and documents of privileged information.
These tools are backed by AI Redaction technologies, which address the complexities that come with manual redaction.
What are the Challenges of Data Redaction in the UK Healthcare Sector?
Data redaction ensures data security by upholding privacy. However, implementing these solutions comes with a set of issues, which include:
1. Balancing Transparency with Privacy
Redacting unnecessary information can bring transparency issues within the organization or other parties. They must strike a balance between sensitive and nonsensitive information.
2. Identifying the Correct Information
Determining what information should be redacted is based on the task's context, and it is subjective. Moreover, keeping up with national and international data protection laws and regulations can be challenging.
3. Keeping the Integrity of a Document
Redacted documents must keep the integrity of the original document. In contrast, they should keep the redacted records accessible to authorized individuals.
4. Technological Challenges
Technological challenges are among the most common issues with implementing data redaction tools in UK healthcare frameworks.
They must consider controlling access, integrating existing systems, file format support, etc.
How Can Healthcare Organizations Use Redaction Tools for Data Privacy?
Several types of redaction procedures can exist depending on the nature of information and privacy needs.
The following are five steps for perfecting the redaction process:
1. Planning and Assessment
The first step of the targeted redaction process is to assess the content for redaction.
Healthcare professionals should determine sensitive information for removal and consider data protection standards and privacy laws.
2. Identification of Sensitive Data
It is crucial to identify the classified information to redact correctly. Medical institutions carry PII information, confidential statements, transactions, financial data, SSNs, and diagnoses.
Unable to identify the correct information can lead to data breaches, and failure to comply with regulations can lead to heavy fines and penalties.
3. Implementing Redaction Tools
Paper documents can be redacted using markers and other materials. However, for electronic data, they need modern redaction processes and tools to do specialized redaction.
Moreover, auto-redaction feature allows users to identify sensitive information automatically and conduct bulk redaction.
4. Redaction Review
After the redaction procedure, healthcare professionals should review the process if any confidential information is left behind and address it manually.
It is necessary to conduct a secondary review so that the organization can stay compliant with government regulations.
5. Sharing Redacted Data
Medical establishments sometimes share data with the government or third-party organizations. In such cases, they must ensure they send a redacted version.
What Is the Regulatory Landscape in the UK Healthcare Sector and the Role of Redaction Tools in It?
Healthcare providers and firms in the UK must comply with multiple data privacy and protection laws.
The Information Commissioner Office or ICO is responsible for imposing data protection laws and protecting the public's right to information in the digital era.
UK healthcare establishments must follow the necessary compliances, regulations, and frameworks.
Data Protection Act 2018
The Information Commissioner Office imposes The Data Protection Act 2018 in the UK. This act aims to control how businesses and governments use personal information.
Business and government organizations must comply with the following standards.
- They must use the data lawfully, transparently, and fairly.
- They must use the data for explicit and specific purposes.
- They guarantee the relevant and adequate use of information.
- They are Storing the data for as little time as is required.
- They are protecting the data against unauthorized access, loss, and damage and ensuring data protection.
The Data Protection Act also gives rights to people regarding their data and how governments and organizations use it.
Citizens have the following rights to their data.
- They can know the purpose of data usage.
- Have access to their data.
- Update their incorrect information.
- Restrict or stop the processing of their data.
- Ask for deletion of data.
- They can also object to data portability.
Moreover, people also have the right to act when their data is used in automated decision-making processes with little nonhuman involvement or use for data profiling.
However, healthcare organizations can redaction processes to comply with the Data Protection Act 2018. They can safeguard PII information such as faces, addresses, and SSNs with the help of targeted redaction and PII redaction software.
UK General Data Protection Regulation
The European Union created and passed the General Data Protection Regulation. However, after Brexit in 2020, the UK retained the EU version and renamed it UK GDPR. It works alongside The Data Protection Act 2018 and has most GDPR elements.
UK GDPR applies to every organization, including the healthcare sector. Non-compliant businesses can face heavy penalties and fines.
Following are the elements of the UK GDPR checklist.
Transparency and Lawful Basis
All healthcare sectors in the UK should conduct an assessment on data collection and processing and who has access to it.
They should be able to provide legal reasons for the data usage. Moreover, the healthcare privacy policy should give clear information about data usage.
Data Security
The patient and consumer data are of utmost importance in UK GDPR compliance. It includes creating a data protection strategy, internal security policy, data encryption, pseudonymization, and anonymization.
In the event of a data breach, your healthcare establishment should have a straightforward process to notify relevant authorities.
Accountability and Governance
Every clinic and healthcare entity should have a committed person who ensures GDPR compliance. In addition, if any third-party organization uses the organization's data, they should sign a data processing agreement to comply with UK GDPR laws.
They can add PII redaction and face redaction clauses in the agreement so third-party organizations can also take data protection measures.
Privacy Rights
Organizations should make it easy for customers to receive and request information about them. They can ask to update the existing info and stop processing their data.
It includes data protection rights that are from The Data Protection Act 2018.
When working in healthcare, they must ensure the above checklist for medical records and datasets.
ISO/IEC-27001
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a nongovernmental organization operating in over 160 countries.
It has developed the ISO/IEC 27001 guidelines for the ISMS (Information security management system) of businesses of all sizes.
Healthcare ISMS can comply with ISO/IEC-27001 standards to mitigate data theft risk and privacy challenges. The following are the three main principles.
- Keeping confidentiality (Keeping data only in authorized hands)
- Information Integrity (Securely storing data and preventing it from damage)
- Availability of data (The data should remain available upon the request of the client or customer)
ISO/IEC-27001 is not a legal requirement. However, its importance makes it almost a mandatory framework for the healthcare industry in the UK.
In addition, redaction services can help healthcare and clinical facilities to comply with ISO compliance.
Benefits of Redaction Tools in the Healthcare Industry
Redaction tools provide several benefits to the healthcare industry, and these include:
1. Complying with Patient Privacy Laws
We have mentioned the necessary compliance requirements for healthcare service providers in the UK. By implementing redaction procedures, they can ensure compliance with government and international data protection standards.
2. Securing Data and Information
We all know that data security is paramount in healthcare records. Redaction tools can automatically identify and redact confidential data, thus preventing unauthorized access and mitigating data breach risks.
3. Mitigating Risk
The automatic redaction process enables organizations to reduce human errors and ensure data remains safe from accidental disclosure.
4. Secure Information Sharing
Healthcare organizations can use redaction application to secure file sharing without the risk of data breach and theft. The redaction files only contain the necessary information.
5. Cost and Time Efficient
The auto-redaction feature can detect and redact bulk files and substantial data. Manually doing the process can take a considerable amount of time and money.
6. Integrating with Existing System
Redaction tools can be integrated with existing healthcare infrastructure and systems. It guarantees uniformity in data protection procedures while streamlining the redaction process.
VIDIZMO Redactor – One of the Best Redaction Tools for the Healthcare Sector
VIDIZMO Redactor is easily one of the best redaction tools available. It uses AI-powered redaction features to detect staff and patients' personally identifiable information and medical data.
As the industry faces significant threats and challenges, the VIDIZMO Redactor is a reliable option to counter the issues.
In addition, it assists medical organizations in complying with the Data Protection Act 2018, UK GDPR, ISO/IEC-27001, and NIST cybersecurity frameworks by redacting sensitive data and protecting it from reaching malicious hands.
Following are the state-of-the-art features of VIDOZMO Redactor.
- Redact PII information from audio and video files such as medical consultations, laboratory experiments, and security camera footage recordings. They can have redacted audio and video files by using the VIDIZMO Redactor.
- Redact patient data from medical records, research files, insurance documents, prescriptions, etc.
- Pharmacies and medical equipment providers can redact their commercial information to maintain a competitive edge.
- Every industry prioritizes data security and needs a redaction tool that works alongside their data security policy. The VIDIZMO redactor is the right tool for this job. It gives role-based access controls so that only authorized people can access the company data. Moreover, redacted data will prevent data theft in an internal data breach.
Maintaining Data Privacy in Healthcare Institutions With Redaction Tools
Redaction tools have become an undebatable part of data protection strategy in healthcare organizations. You can redact PII information, financial transactions, medical details, commercial information, etc.
Moreover, it addresses the industry-wide challenges healthcare organizations face in the UK. They can safeguard their information accurately and securely with targeted redaction.
Furthermore, with VIDIZMO Redactor, medical organizations can take their data protection measures to the next level.
But don't just take our word for it—test it out for free by opting for our 7-day free trial!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is automated redaction software?
The automated redaction software covers the challenges and drawbacks of manual redacting methods. It uses OCR-Optical Character Recognition Artificial Intelligence capabilities to auto-detect and redact documents. It is also capable of conducting bulk redaction with high precision.
What is the meaning of redacted?
Many people ask what is the meaning of redacted? In simple words, redacted means removing or obscuring confidential information from files and documents by using redaction tools.
Can we undo a redaction document?
There are two ways to conduct redaction in a file. You can overwrite or edit the existing file and remove the information and objects you want. In that case, there is no way to regain the redacted data. However, you can conduct a redaction and save it as a copy of the original, and it will keep the original data intact.
What happens if an organization fails to comply with UK GDPR?
Following UK GDPR rules for all UK businesses and organizations is crucial. Failure to comply with regulations can face legal action from the Information Commissioner's Office. They can issue warnings to the establishment, ban data processing, and transfer, or impose heavy fines.
How to redact an email?
You can redact email using redaction tools. Firstly, you have to check what format your redaction tool supports. Upload your email in the required format (in Word or PDF) and use the redaction tool for manual or auto redaction.