Protecting sensitive information is paramount for maintaining competitive advantage, ensuring regulatory compliance, and preserving customer trust. Exact Data Matching (EDM) has emerged as a powerful tool in the arsenal of data protection strategies, offering precision and efficiency in identifying and securing important data assets. EDM can lead to significant financial savings for organizations across various industries, as well. This is the first post in an occasional series that explores real world use cases of EDM, and business benefits when used in a data security program.
Exact Data Matching Defined
Let’s start with a common understanding. Exact Data Matching is a sophisticated data protection technique that creates unique identifiers, via hash values, for specific pieces of sensitive information. These identifiers are used to detect and protect that information across various systems and processes within an organization. Unlike traditional pattern-based matching, which is prone to false positives, EDM focuses on exact matches, ensuring only designated data elements are flagged or acted upon, resulting in increased accuracy, achieving near 100% match. Hash value use also keeps the source data private enhancing data privacy.
EDM Benefits to Healthcare Records Management
EDM plays a crucial role in helping healthcare organizations maintain compliance to regulations such as HIPAA and enhance patient privacy protection. By creating hash values of sensitive patient information, EDM enables providers to implement robust safeguards without exposing the actual data. This approach satisfies HIPAA’s requirements for data protection and access control while minimizing the risk of unauthorized disclosure.
For instance, when patient records are transferred between departments or healthcare facilities, EDM can ensure that only authorized personnel with the correct access levels can view the complete information. The system can automatically redact or mask sensitive data based on the user’s clearance level, all without storing or transmitting the actual protected health information (PHI). This granular control not only helps maintain HIPAA compliance but also significantly enhances patient privacy protection, fostering trust between healthcare providers and their patients.
By utilizing hash values instead of actual patient data, EDM substantially reduces the risk of medical data breaches. Even if an unauthorized party gains access to the hashed data, they cannot reverse-engineer it to obtain the original sensitive information. This added layer of security is particularly valuable in an era where healthcare organizations are increasingly targeted by cybercriminals due to the high value of medical data on the black market.
Patients now demand their personal data be secured and protected due to data leaks from numerous healthcare organizations. The reduced risk of data breaches translates directly into improved trust in healthcare information systems. Patients have greater confidence in the security and integrity of electronic health records and other digital healthcare platforms. This trust is essential for the adoption and success of innovative healthcare technologies, such as telemedicine and AI-driven diagnostics, which rely heavily on the secure exchange of sensitive patient data
Moreover, the use of hashes rather than actual data in EDM systems provides an additional benefit in terms of data minimization – a key principle in modern data protection regulations. By only storing and processing the minimum necessary information (in this case, hash values) to achieve the intended purpose, healthcare organizations can further demonstrate their commitment to patient privacy and regulatory compliance. This approach not only enhances security but also aligns with best practices in data governance and ethical data handling in the healthcare sector.
A large healthcare organization is currently validating our classification engine with the rigorous target of examining a 1 billion cell table with single digit percentage false positive rate at speed EDM will play an important role here.
Conclusion
Exact Data Matching offers a precision approach to data protection that aligns with the complex needs of modern enterprises. By providing accurate identification and control of specific data elements, EDM helps organizations maintain compliance, reduce risks, and safeguard their valuable information assets.
If PHI data classification and HIPAA compliance challenge your organization, contact us to learn how we can help.