Are you concerned about compliance with HIPAA and GDPR regulations to avoid fines? Do you want to improve patient care and manage all the devices of the hospital seamlessly while reducing the financial and administrative burden on the IT department? Now you do not need to worry more because (MDM) solution can resolve your problem. It helps you remotely secure and manage all mobile devices connected to your hospital’s network. To further understand the role of MDM solutions in hospitals, let us first explain the device management solution and then go through its applications.
What is Mobile Device Management (MDM)?
MDM is software that helps IT admins to deploy policies of an organization, approved apps, security configurations, certificates, web filtering, content policies, etc. to end devices so that all these gadgets should be following organizations’ SOPs. On top of that, the MDM solution provides a centralized console that lets you view details of all the enrolled devices, their compliance status, installed apps, and other security configurations.
MDM in healthcare
In healthcare, MDM solutions can be used in several ways to provide quality healthcare facilities and preserve the privacy and confidentiality of patient information. The following are some of the .
Kiosk mode for healthcare apps
Using this feature, the IT admin can deploy single or multi-app kiosks on the IT gadgets of the hospital. To be more precise, the admin can lock down a device to one or a set of pre-approved apps so that all other features, functionalities, and apps remain inaccessible to the user. These features allow physicians and specialists to focus on the records of patients carefully while providing treatment as they do not have to scroll and move to and forth between different windows. This as a result improves the quality of health facilities provided to patients.
Similarly, this feature helps in mitigating security and privacy issues as healthcare providers are not very technical and they can unintentionally leak sensitive information by accessing malicious files or downloading malware. Since kiosk mode limits the device to run approved apps only so the chance of unintentional data leakage will be minimized.
Ensure the privacy of sensitive data
Device management solutions play a vital role in ensuring the privacy of patient data by implementing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies like disabling cameras, screenshot capture, copy-paste functionality, Bluetooth, USB data transfer, etc. Moreover, it enforces stringent password policies and access control mechanisms so that unauthorized access can be prevented. It ensures the confidentiality of data at transit by allowing VPN connections, trusted Wi-Fi networks, and proxies. In this way, patent data remains secure, confidential, and untampered during health treatments.
Device provisioning
For secure and streamlined operations, the Mobile Device Management solution allows zero-touch enrollment of mobile devices. In out-of-the-box enrollment, all the mobile devices of doctors, nurses, specialists, and other support staff activate with the pre-installed security policies so that they have access to approved apps, data, and other resources. These devices are normally configured by focusing on the principle of least privilege to manage access rights.
Push approved apps and URLs
MDM solutions allow administrators to push approved healthcare apps so that devices can be used for performing intended tasks only. It provides admins the right to block unnecessary apps, install apps with pre-defined configurations/log on or enable runtime permissions so that the access of apps to data can be limited and secured. Likewise, it also allows admins to block or allow specific websites or categories so that hospital staff cannot use devices for entertainment and waste their time on unnecessary activities during office hours.
Compliance
Another important objective of the MDM solution is to comply with international healthcare standards like HIPAA and GDPR as healthcare is the most regulated sector requiring stringent security and privacy measures. Besides deploying security policies, approved apps, and web filtering, MDM software allows administrators to set compliance standards for devices that take into account all the requirements of external regulations so whenever a device is non-conformant, a device gets locked, and a notification should be sent to admin. This helps hospitals to minimize fines and penalties by covering the loopholes of the particular device internally.
Considering the above-mentioned functionalities and features, Mobile Device Management is a comprehensive solution for managing and securing devices fleet in hospitals. However, choosing the right MDM solution is the key as some solutions are not that reliable so software must be chosen wisely to gain maximum benefits of this technology. In our opinion, Vantage MDM is the most reliable and feature-enriched device management solution that enables you to have full control over your devices. It assists hospitals to secure the confidential data of patients and comply with external and internal regulations to improve patient care facilities.
