How Healthcare Teams Use Secure Custom Fields

Healthcare organizations across the globe rely on Jira to manage cross-functional workflows; from patient operations and billing processes to compliance reviews and IT support.

These shared workflows often involve:

• Clinical teams
• IT and support staff
• Billing and insurance operations
• Privacy, legal, and compliance stakeholders
• But when all these departments collaborate in the same Jira issues, it becomes easy to unintentionally expose Protected Health Information (PHI) or other sensitive patient data.

And since Jira’s default permissions apply at the issue level, anyone with access to the issue can see all its fields, regardless of their role.

Secure Custom Fields for Jira solves this by enabling field-level access control, so healthcare teams can keep patient data secure while enabling efficient cross-functional collaboration.

The Challenge: Shared workspaces risk exposing confidential health data

Even well-structured Jira workflows can include:

• Medical history details
• Insurance identifiers
• Internal care team notes
• Case review comments
• Patient risk assessments
• Audit findings or compliance flags

These fields must be protected in accordance with global privacy regulations like:

• GDPR (EU)
• PIPEDA (Canada)
• ISO 27701 / ISO 27001 (International standards)
• Local data protection laws across APAC, LATAM, and EMEA regions

Without field-level controls, organizations face:

• Risk of privacy violations
• Audit failures
• Disconnected workflows or duplicative record keeping

Why field-level visibility matters in healthcare

Healthcare organizations need to:

• Control access to PHI and sensitive operational fields
• Ensure role-based visibility across departments
• Avoid accidental disclosure of patient or audit information
• Demonstrate compliance with applicable privacy and security standards

Secure Custom Fields for Jira helps by allowing you to define who can see or edit each field within a shared Jira issue without fragmenting the process or losing visibility.

How Healthcare Teams use Secure Custom Fields

Step 1: Identify PHI and operationally sensitive fields in your workflow

Begin by reviewing your workflows to pinpoint fields that contain protected or privileged information.

Examples include:

• Patient ID
• Diagnosis Details
• Insurance Number
• Care Team Notes
• Medical Review Comments
• Audit Comments
• Billing Dispute Notes

These fields are often needed across workflows, but shouldn’t be visible to all Jira users involved in the issue.

Step 2: Define access rules based on roles and responsibilities

Secure Custom Fields for Jira lets you assign field-level access control based on:

• Project roles (e.g., Clinical Staff, IT, Billing)
• Groups (e.g., Privacy Office, Case Reviewers)
• Individual users (e.g., attending physicians, compliance leads)

Example field visibility setup:

• Only clinical staff can view Diagnosis Details
• IT staff can see Device Request fields, but not Patient ID
• Billing team sees Insurance Provider but not Medical Notes

This ensures the right people have the right access, without unnecessary exposure.

Step 3: Use secured custom fields to support privacy compliance and audit readiness

With Secure Custom Fields for Jira, healthcare organizations can:

• Enforce least-privilege access principles
• Maintain logs of who viewed or modified sensitive data
• Align field visibility with privacy policies and data protection frameworks
• Show clear documentation for internal or external audits

Whether your organization operates under GDPR, PIPEDA, or internal governance policies, Secure Custom Fields for Jira helps ensure patient data remains protected and auditable without slowing down operations.

💡 Bonus tip

Automate access control based on workflow status

Pair Secure Custom Fields for Jira with Jira Automation to dynamically control field visibility as patient cases or operational workflows evolve.

Here’s a quick video walkthrough on how to set up Jira automation with secure custom fields:

Example automations:

• When Case Status = “Ready for Review,” reveal Review Comments to Legal
• If PHI Sensitivity Level = High, alert Privacy Team and restrict visible fields
• Auto-hide Audit Notes when issue is marked “Resolved”

This reduces manual handoffs and improves privacy compliance through automation.

TLDR

• Jira’s default permissions expose all fields in an issue, which risks compliance
• Secure Custom Fields for Jira enables role-based field-level visibility
• Teams work in one place while sensitive data stays protected
• Automate access changes based on case status or sensitivity
• Helps healthcare orgs meet global privacy standards with confidence

Ready to Secure Patient Data and Stay Globally Compliant?

Secure Custom Fields for Jira helps healthcare teams manage sensitive operational workflows with confidence while staying aligned with data protection regulations worldwide.

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