Cisco this week unveiled a blueprint to address Payment Card Industry data security for the healthcare industry.

The blueprint, which follows a similar plan for the retail market, is intended to provide healthcare organizations with a model for safeguarding patient financial transaction data and other personally identifiable information that is captured and processed within a healthcare facility or retail pharmacies. Called PCI for Healthcare Solution, it offers design and implementation guidelines to protect credit card, patient demographic and employee information.

Cisco also said it is now a member in the PCI Security Standards Council, which helps define future data security policy.

Citing industry research, Cisco says external data security related attacks on the healthcare industry have increased 85% between January 2007 and January 2008. One in four healthcare executives do not know where their sensitive data is located, the vendor says. Also, many organizations do not have a security framework in place to provide optimal protection, Cisco claims.

Cisco's PCI for Healthcare Solution is intended to address that by establishing a model to secure sensitive data flowing through a Cisco healthcare network, and offering enterprise policy direction on how healthcare organizations should protect assets such as patient medical and financial information.

Cisco says its Unified Wireless Networks and Ironport e-mail security appliances have received endorsement from the American Hospital Association.

Cisco's PCI Solution for Retail was announced at the National Retail Federation show in January. It includes a set of PCI reference guidelines designed to help retailers manage compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard, including design recommendations for securing remote environments such as retail stores, e-commerce sites and data centers.

Earlier this year, supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers suffered a data intrusion into its computer network that resulted in the theft of customer credit and debit card numbers.