Passwords Selected by Hospital Employees: An Investigative Study

The health care industry has benefitted from its employees’ ability to view patient data, but at the same time this access allows for patient’s health care records and information to be easily tampered with or stolen. Access to and transmission of patient data may improve care, increase delivery time of services and reduce health care costs, security of that information may be jeopardized due to the innocent sharing of personal and non-personal data with the wrong person. In this study, we surveyed employees of different size hospitals in various regions of the state who were willing to share their passwords. Our findings indicate that employees need further or additional training in their awareness surrounding password creation. KeywordsPasswords; Security; HIPPA; HITECH.