The Unique Security Challenges in Healthcare
Healthcare organizations face an extraordinary security and compliance burden when managing patient data. With protected health information (PHI) distributed across clinical documentation, patient communications, and administrative records, maintaining HIPAA compliance in cloud environments requires exceptional vigilance.
The stakes couldn’t be higher—healthcare data breaches cost an average of $429 per compromised record, nearly three times higher than the global average across industries. As healthcare providers increasingly adopt Microsoft 365 for clinical collaboration, administrative functions, and patient communications, they must navigate the tension between enabling efficient workflows and protecting sensitive information.
Regulatory Compliance in a Cloud-First Healthcare World
Healthcare providers using Microsoft 365 must contend with a complex web of regulatory requirements. HIPAA and HITECH regulations mandate strict controls over PHI, including who can access it and how it’s shared. Microsoft 365 provides a compliant foundation through Business Associate Agreements (BAAs), but healthcare organizations remain responsible for properly configuring and monitoring their environments.
The challenge lies in maintaining visibility across a sprawling cloud ecosystem. Without proper monitoring tools, healthcare providers struggle to answer critical compliance questions:
- Who has access to protected health information?
- Has PHI been shared externally, and with whom?
- Are there unauthorized guests with access to clinical data?
- Is patient data being retained according to proper schedules?
These gaps create significant compliance risks that can lead to regulatory penalties and damaged reputation. Thus, the need for regular security auditing is increasingly crucial.
Critical Security Capabilities for Healthcare Organizations
Healthcare collaboration frequently extends beyond organizational boundaries—to affiliated providers, insurance companies, research partners, and temporary staff. Without proper document management, these external connections can create significant security vulnerabilities.
Audit provides comprehensive guest user reports that allow healthcare organizations to:
- Identify precisely what clinical and administrative systems each external user can access
- Determine when that access was granted and by whom
- Generate tenant-wide reports showing all external parties with access to your environment
For a multi-facility health system using Audit, this visibility revealed that former contract nurses retained access to clinical documentation systems months after their assignments ended—a significant compliance vulnerability that was quickly remediated once identified.
Monitoring Document Sharing with Precision
Healthcare workflows require secure document sharing—with referring physicians, insurance providers, patients, and other stakeholders. However, without proper controls, these sharing activities can inadvertently expose protected health information.
Consider a common scenario: a care coordinator quickly shares discharge instructions with a patient’s family member using a link that doesn’t expire. Months later, that link remains active, potentially exposing PHI if the recipient’s email is compromised.
Audit by ProvisionPoint provides detailed sharing reports that identify content shared from SharePoint, Teams, or OneDrive, including:
- The specific type of sharing link created (anonymous, organization-only, or specific people)
- Who has access to each shared document
- Whether appropriate expiration policies have been applied
This visibility enables healthcare organizations to implement appropriate governance around document sharing, preventing PHI from remaining exposed longer than necessary.
Conclusion
For today’s healthcare providers, enhancing Microsoft 365 security and compliance requires specialized tools designed to address the unique challenges of protecting patient information. Audit by ProvisionPoint provides healthcare-specific visibility that enables organizations to identify and address compliance vulnerabilities before they impact patient trust or trigger regulatory penalties.
As healthcare regulations continue to evolve and cyber threats grow more sophisticated, this proactive approach to compliance will become increasingly valuable—not just as a regulatory necessity, but as a competitive advantage in a healthcare landscape where patient trust is the ultimate currency.
