Designing potential solutions in big data domain addressing data privacy and data security concerns in healthcare domain

Abstract

Big data and digital transformation are two of the most used buzzwords in business context across the globe today. With the world facing a massive natural disruption in the form of Covid-19, digital transformation has caught on speed across industries and with the healthcare industry being one of the industries directly impacted by this disruption, the extent of transformation in this field has been substantial. At the same time, this brings a certain risk of exposure to data breaches and privacy concerns associated with personal health information. In this report, we first understand the scale of digital transformation and the necessity for an organization to not be left behind. Next, we delve into the importance of data security in healthcare and why it has been such a big conversation point over the last decade. Having understood the pressing issue of cybersecurity in healthcare, we next try to understand the various roadblocks that hold back an organization from implementing systems to ensure data security. Post this analysis, we understand the development in technology in this field as well as the various categories to which most of these innovations belong. Once we get an idea of what is possible, we look at some environmental factors in the form of legal regulations(HIPAA) and frameworks(NIST, DELTA) available in the market worldwide. We also look at the current developments in the Indian context (DISHA and PDP Bill – 2019). Equipped with this knowledge, we then study a modern relatively secure big data infrastructure in the form of data safe havens, and a specific application in the field of healthcare (CIMVHR and CDSH). Finally, we evaluate the architecture based on the big data analytics pipeline and study the advantages and drawbacks of such a system.