Medical offices, even small ones, are often responsible for some very sensitive information. Medical records, insurance information and identification documents should all be adequately protected.
Whether you run a small town clinic or you have a small specialised practice, security is important. Even if you don’t have many patients coming and going each day, security should be one of your chief concerns. A doctor’s office should be a safe place where people can feel comfortable leaving their most sensitive information. When you are thinking about the current state of your medical office’s security, keep the following tips in mind:
- Protect sensitive digital and paper files from damage and theft.
- Make sure your computers are secure when connected to the internet.
- Pay attention to fire safety. Keep vulnerable, important documents
Digital and Paper File Protection
A medical office often has a variety of sensitive paperwork to organise and protect. Of course, patient medical records should be kept safe from damage and from thieves. However, a medical office may also have other highly sensitive information on file like insurance forms or other documents with patient identity information. Sensitive information should be kept in a secure location that can’t easily be accessed by potential thieves or damaged in the event of a fire. Even if you have a digital filing system, you should have some safe place to store back up hard drives and disks. A security cabinet can offer both defence against burglary as well as fire damage. For instance, the
Phoenix FireFox SS1622K offers excellent protection from burglary and physical attack. It can also protect paper and digital devices for 120 minutes in fire.
Online Security
If you use an office computer network to manage files and store information you also need make sure that you have adequate defences against online threats. Health information technology makes communication, storage and file management easier but it also makes sensitive information more accessible to hackers if you aren’t careful. Because of this, it is important for any business to protect their computers from viruses and spyware, especially medical offices. If you are simply storing files on a database, you may not need internet access on all computers. If you do connect to the internet, your risk of compromising private information increases dramatically. Use reliable antivirus software and make sure you keep it up to date.
Fire Preparedness and Safety
Fire safety is essential for any office even when one seems unlikely. A fire can spread quickly and if you don’t protect valuable documents and files you can lose everything in a short amount of time. Keeping digital and paper files in a fire resistant container allows will ensure that in the event of a fire, you can simply focus on getting yourself and others out of the building. The
Phoenix Data Combi DS2502E fire safe is designed to keep electronics and paper documents safe from fire and opportunistic theft. No office is too small for basic security necessities. Even if you have very few people that come into the office every day, it is important to keep these security tips in mind.
