ClearDATA, a vendor of healthcare public-cloud security, compliance, and privacy technologies and services, today debuted a new software-as-a-service system, ClearDATA Locate Mask, that enables healthcare organizations to leverage unstructured datasets containing PHI or PII by masking or redacting the sensitive data.

WHY IT MATTERS

Powered by machine learning models, Locate Mask works on one of healthcare’s common challenges – broadly sharing patient data securely and in a compliant fashion. Organizations can redact patient information while retaining critical information to research, innovate and improve patient care, with up to 15 customized HIPAA identifiers available, such as age, location, service dates, diagnoses and symptoms.

As part of the Locate product suite, the new offering is designed to help healthcare organizations build a culture of compliance while taking advantage of available data for other purposes. By using Locate Mask, the vendor said, healthcare organizations can create a policy-based process of using low-risk, meaningful data for research and development and to train machine-learning models, while also maintaining patient privacy and public-cloud adoption.

THE LARGER TREND

Without masking technology, healthcare organizations are unable to share data efficiently for medical research or to leverage AI or machine-learning technology. Currently, if patient data is shared, or even used internally, organizations are forced to use wholesale de-identification or encryption technologies to anonymize all identifiable values.

With the precision masking integrated in Locate Mask, the vendor contends, healthcare organizations can better analyze patient outcomes to drive operational efficiency and lower the overall cost of care.

ON THE RECORD

“Data is extremely valuable, especially in healthcare and life sciences, but security and compliance requirements often prevent data from being fully utilized or even shared,” said Suhas Kelkar, Chief Product Officer at ClearDATA. “Locate Mask now offers our healthcare customers an easy-to-use solution that extends the value of structured or unstructured data containing PHI or PII while satisfying security and other privacy considerations.”

“With the rise of the digital patient, we see healthcare organizations struggle to compliantly use data that contains PHI or PII for legitimate purposes that further innovation,” Matt Ferrari, ClearDATA Chief Technology Officer and cofounder concluded. “With our data masking offering, ClearDATA enables companies to take advantage of the wealth of analytical information they maintain – without risking identification of sensitive patient information.”

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com
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