A VPN is Essential for Avoiding Data Breaches in Medical Franchises
The importance of a virtual private network (VPN) for medical franchises cannot be emphasized enough. A VPN is essential for security against cyber threats. The role of using a dedicated IP address VPN to combat data threats is essential for many medical franchises including chiropractic, senior care, mental health and other health-related franchises.
What is a VPN, and Why It is Useful in Medical Franchises?
A VPN helps transmit sensitive information through an encrypted internet connection while preventing the access of unauthorized users. Medical franchises involve a lot of sensitive patient data. People may assume that healthcare only concerns doctors, medicines and nurses but there is more to it. The sensitive data that most medical franchises use attracts cyber criminals.
A VPN is the best data protection software for medical franchise owners as it is affordable yet easy to use. It is very important to protect healthcare data. HIPAA wants all the healthcare companies and their business associates to protect and secure the health information for which encryption is the best way.
A VPN establishes a protected network connection for anyone who is using it while using public networks, making sure that the data that is transmitted is protected. It encrypts your online traffic and hides your identity which makes it hard for third parties or attackers to keep a track of your online activities. Cybercriminals often launch an attack after they have tracked online activities of users. A VPN hides your online activities from third parties which is why hackers are unable to steal data.
How a VPN Protects and Encrypts Medical Franchise Data
The easiest way to implement data protection for a medical franchise is by encrypting it. It essentially turns your sensitive data into unreadable text which can be called ciphertext. This is not mandatory by HIPAA but is one of the best ways to protect your healthcare data. If a medical franchise does not want to use encryption, then the Department of Health and Human Services requires it to have a comparable protection. However, most people prefer using a VPN as it ensures a secure connection between the websites you visit and your device.
Benefits of a VPN to Avoid Medical Franchise Data Breach in 2022
Medical franchises include health reports of patients which are considered to be very confidential. Health reports are mostly kept online as they lay as the groundwork for the care of the patient. In the past, the reports were kept offline but now as everything has gotten digitized, they are available online.
A provider has to usually go over a patient’s medical history before he or she provides proper care. For this reason, the medical records that are kept offline or online have to be accessed. Maintaining proper health records and protecting them is a dilemma faced by medical franchisors. These concerns are solved with the use of a VPN service.
A VPN is one of the best solutions for online security breaches in 2022. There are thousands of users around the world who use a VPN for securing their data and they are quite satisfied with the data security, privacy and connectivity they get from the VPN service. Medical franchisors need to make a VPN service mandatory for their use in order to protect the numerous sensitive data they have on their systems. If any hacker or cybercriminal gets access to any of the loopholes in the system, a medical franchise may get into great trouble.
Here are some reasons why a VPN is essential for avoiding data breaches in medical franchises.
1. Enhanced Security
Medical franchisors can enjoy improved protection and security of their information and data with the use of a VPN service. The reason for the enhanced security is that the VPN encrypts the traffic data. The interactions between the medical franchise’s device and the interactions with other devices are encrypted with an active VPN which makes it unidentifiable to third parties.
These interactions need to be protected as they have confidential test reports of patients which are sent from one healthcare professional to another through the internet. A VPN in this case helps protect such interactions and communications from cybercriminals and protects against data breaches.
2. Improved Privacy
You can get better privacy and guaranteed anonymity with a virtual private network installed on a router. To make sure that the communications are in the existing order of contact, medical franchises have to install a VPN. This would help in hiding all the online activities from third parties including hackers and cyber criminals.
3. Better Connectivity
A VPN gives improved connectivity to medical franchises and providers which is essential for high speed internet to access health files or other important documents online.
Other Best Practices for Medical Franchise Data Protection
A very real and growing threat that most medical franchisors are concerned about is a data breach. Tools like a VPN are helpful in combating data breaches, however, there are other practices to combat data threats as well. Awareness regarding the misuse of information is spreading quickly.
Data breaches can be combated through collective effort. Some of the practices other than using a VPN to fight against data breaches are:
- Employee Training and Awareness: In most cases, medical franchise staff members are not aware of the technology and its loopholes. This is what the hackers take advantage of. It is necessary to train staff and other workers in a medical franchise about cyber security and how hackers can get access to sensitive data.
- Implement Standard Data Usage Practices: What medical franchisors can do is have standard policies for data usage. This way, data will be utilized and transferred to limited people. Medical franchisors will be able to control the data used and sent outside or within cyberspace. With this initiative, the data will not go into the hands of third parties without the notice of higher authorities and there will be fewer chances of data breaches.
- Utilize Small Scale Security Solutions: Large-scale franchisors are able to have bigger data privacy systems and departments as they have greater resources to keep up with cybersecurity issues. But smaller organizations have to take smaller data security measures like a budget-friendly VPN or a dedicated program. It is not necessary to have a very expensive program or tool to secure and protect your data from theft or breach. Sometimes even high-profile organizations with top-notch security get attacked by cybercriminals.
Medical franchises can be targeted by cyber attackers. They can suffer from cyber attacks, data breaches and data thefts. A VPN is very crucial for medical franchises as it can curtail most of these threats. No matter what size the company is, a VPN would provide a noteworthy solution to avoid data breaches in 2022.