Healthcare Security Incident Types

Posted by Tonni Islam

In healthcare, identifying, handling, and then avoiding repeat incidents is one of the most important tasks of any manager or stakeholder. It’s important for maintaining compliance, protecting your patients, and running a better organization.

That being said, in this blog post, let’s talk about different types of security incident types that you may experience. That way you can be best prepared to handle them professionally and quickly.

Types Of Incidents & Responses

Multiple factors can create errors or incidents within your healthcare organization. You must document and analyze these with the right software tools and personnel. Let’s talk about some of the main categories of incidents that you may experience:

Administrative Issues Or Planning

This can involve a lack of a resuscitation statement or referral, a mix-up of patient data, or an incorrect agreement or convention.

Patient Examinations

These cover a range of errors such as a digression for protocols, incorrect examination, or delayed examination results.

Patient Treatment

This can include improper COVID-19 protocols, a fall incident, or an improper diagnosis.

Medication Incident

The wrong medication may have been supplied to a patient. Incorrect medication may have been handed off or may have been incomplete. The wrong dosage may have been administered as well.

Internal Communication

There may have been an error in the way that an order was communicated. The same goes for discharging, intaking, or transferring patients.

This extends to sensitive and private patient data or medical records. There are several types of incident responses that you must undertake if a breach occurs. Breach response testing is essential to prepare your organization for the appropriate steps to take.

Healthcare Workers

If there were splashing, needles, cutting, or other incidents related to patients, this can result in an incident. Patient or family aggression are also defined as incidents.

The Most Common Reported Incidents

Incidents related to medications are the most common healthcare incidents. This can include omitting dosage, providing medications to the wrong patient, or administering the wrong dosage.

For instance, a nurse may use the wrong bottle of medication when they are distracted and then hand the wrong dosage or medication to a patient. This could lead to a patient injury or other complications.

Learn About Types Of Incidents & Responses Today

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You deserve high quality security risk assessments to easily pass audits, maintain compliance, and minimize risks — for you, your patients, and shareholders.

Whether you’re complying with HIPAA, NIST, PCI, HITRUST, or other frameworks, our experts can help. Reach out for a free consultation now.

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