Standards for information security and processes in healthcare

Purpose – Regardless of who or where we are and when we get sick, we expect healthcare to make us well and to handle us and our information with care and respect. Today, most healthcare institutions work separately, making the flow of patient information sub‐optimal and the use of common standards practically unheard of. The purpose of this paper is to emphasise the use for standards to improve information security in process‐oriented distributed healthcare.Design/methodology/approach – The paper introduces a real‐life case which is analysed to highlight how and where standards can and should be used in order to improve information security in process‐oriented distributed healthcare.Findings – In total, 11 flaws or problems in information security and process‐orientation are identified. From these, six changes are suggested which address how information is handled, and how organizational routines should be standardized.Research limitations/implications – The case setting is Swedish healthcare, but problem...