New research shows that in spite of understanding the importance of mobile technology and mHealth apps, IT decision makers in the healthcare industry still hold concerns regarding the security of mobile solutions.

The research,  “A Pulse on Mobility in Healthcare” from Red Hat and research company Vanson Bourne shows that over a quarter of health IT leaders do not have full confidence over MDM solutions of their organisations.

550 healthcare IT leaders were interviewed by researchers in the United Kingdom, United States, France, Australia and Germany. 84 percent of survey respondents said that their organisations are HIPAA compliant, however, 50 percent believed that their organisation would not be able to quickly adopt changing regulations. 40 percent of the respondents said that their organisations had implemented mobile devices and mHealth apps for the staff to access patient records while away from their workspace.

When it came to mobile devices, 83 percent listed security as their major concern; whereas 77 percent showed concern regarding data privacy. 49 percent stated inappropriate use of mobile devices and mHealth apps by employees as their top concern. 83 percent of the respondents agreed that caregiving staff was provided tablets while one-third intended to provide the same over the next two years to patients getting outpatient care. Out of those that already had or intended to have an MDM solution, 80 percent regarded the time saved from using mHealth apps as the most beneficial aspect whereas 79 percent thought enhanced employee activity was a top benefit. However, 27 percent respondents were not confident with the MDM option they were currently using. Overall, 98 percent of respondents find it challenging to implement mobile solutions such as security, regulatory and compliance issues, cost, user and patient adoption, etc.

End-to-End HIPAA compliance was a top issue of mHealth app security for 29 percent of the respondents, while approximately one-third of the respondents considered device back-end systems encryption to be a key concern.

The survey also found that healthcare IT managers plan to develop 36 percent more mHealth apps in next year, but only increase the budget by 15.5 percent.

Codified Security is here to help make your mHealth apps secure and keep you compliant with HIPAA. For mobile app security testing try out Codified Security.