A Harvard Medical School team published a letter in the
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association this week warning of the substantial information security concerns around telehealth.
The authors, led by organizational cybersecurity researcher Mohammad S. Jalali, note that the uptick in telemedicine services has undoubtedly made healthcare more accessible – but that the relaxation in regulations about virtual care combined with a heightened threat landscape can spell trouble. As we continue this shift to telemedicine, new issues and risks unravel that need to be addressed, particularly in regard to information security and privacy, and ongoing work is needed to ensure that our technology infrastructure provides an environment for safe and effective care delivery, they wrote.
[co-authors: Adrienne Peng, and Michelle Fong]
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues across the United States, states, payers, and providers are looking for ways to expand access to telehealth services. Telehealth is an essential tool in ensuring patients are able to access the healthcare services they need in as safe a manner as possible. In order to provide our clients with quick and actionable guidance on the evolving telehealth landscape, Manatt Health has developed a federal and comprehensive 50-state tracker for policy, regulatory and legal changes related to telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. This summary of findings is current as of noon ET, Thursday, December 3.