DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING: Employees are leading cause of patient data exposure - AHIMA introduces telemedicine toolkit - Ambra Health gains two partners

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INSIDER ERRORS ARE THE LEADING CAUSE OF HEALTHCARE DATA BREACHES: Insider errors - breaches caused by hospital staff, administrators, or billing specialists - accounted for the majority of patient records exposed in October, according to the Protenus Breach Barometer - a monthly snapshot of reported or disclosed breaches that impact the healthcare industry. Around 65% of all patient records exposed during the month were due to insider error, despite accounting for less than a third of all breaches. Just three of these errors accounted for more than 157,000 patient exposures. And while insider error usually accounts for the largest share of records exposed, October also marks a significant hike in insider error-caused data breaches. In September and August, insider errors breached 25,000 and 27,000 records, respectively.

Data breaches are a huge cause of concern for healthcare organizations looking to transition to digital. About 96% of critical care hospitals and more than 83% of regular hospitals in the US use electronic health records (EHR). Organizations can combat some data breaches with tools such as encryption, but the report highlights the need for hospitals and organizations to take measures that ensure that patient data is safeguarded from internal threats as well.

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AHIMA AIDS PROVIDERS WITH NEW TELEMEDICINE TOOLKIT: The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) announced a new telemedicine toolkit to help hospitals and practices assess potential opportunities in telemedicine, according to Healthcare IT News. The toolkit will give medical providers who are looking to implement or expand telemedicine services the resources needed to successfully implement and maintain a telemedicine program. This includes documentation on how to structure a telemedicine program, regulatory requirements, and how to securely engage with patients in ways that align with clinical and business strategies. The new offering comes as teleservices in healthcare are becoming more popular, in part because they are able to improve access to modern medical services. The US telemedicine market is projected to grow at an annualized rate of 6% over the next three years to reach almost $7 billion in value by 2020, according to Orbis research. It's likely this growth will only accelerate as more professional associations and agencies introduce tools and regulations to give providers and patients easier access to the technology.

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AMBRA HEALTH SEES TWO MORE PROVIDERS ADOPT ITS SERVICES: Ambra Health, the medical data and image management cloud company, announced that Atrius Health and Envision Radiology have adopted the firm's image management tool. The cloud-based tool will enable Atrius and Envision to digitally exchange radiology images within their health systems. This will allow the providers to save both time and money. For example, the providers will be able to phase out costly and time-consuming physical transfers of images via CDs. The two providers have over 60 clinical locations and more than 700 thousand patients between them. Ambra's network is adding two new provider gateways per day and has more than three billion images managed through its platform.