Being Hipaa Compliant Against All Odds

By Author: Martin Lobo
Total Articles: 355
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Technology-led health industry has definitely led to faster access and processing of patient records and data. However, the industry is continuously plagued by large number of security breaches in the recent past. The major cause has been identified as the loss or theft due to unencrypted data. Though government regulations demand that health industry maintain the critical information about the their customers in encrypted formats, tracking of the major health information breaches indicates that most of the breach incidents involved the unencrypted information in the storage media.

Despite strict regulations, the encryption costs and lack of awareness of security risks to the system, customers and the enterprise as a whole, there are a number of enterprises who still continue to store patient health information in unencrypted formats. However, with the authorities combing down operations on HIPAA compliance with huge penalties and strict actions, most of the enterprises under the healthcare industry now need to ensure that they are not just HIPAA compliant but also meet the IT security and compliance regulations.

For ...
... the enterprises, health care providers, covered entities and business associates, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a challenge in today's ever- changing technology landscape and the changing government requirements. Further, with healthcare organizations interacting with partners and patients through digital channels, they become prime sources for identity theft. Such actions on the part of the cyber criminals will lead to a breach-notification of the enterprise and also lead to damage of the brand image.

An effective way for addressing these problems is deploying a unified and comprehensive solution that will enable enterprises to monitor all users, applications and system activities across the network. Deploying compliance management
solutions will enable the healthcare enterprise in identifying the vulnerabilities in their environment, detecting attacks on systems and data besides locating any infrastructure defects that can lead to violation of regulatory mandates. Further, even though the HITECH act expects enterprises to necessitate automated encryption of data, the crux of the issue lies in small and medium healthcare entities remaining reluctant in investing in the encryption technology based on the cost factor.

Leading service providers have however, worked out solutions that would ensure that the encryption requirements are taken care of and meet the HIPAA compliance requirements. The comprehensive IT Security and compliance management solutions besides providing enterprises, covered entities and business associates an easy encryption of digital data storage resources, also provides for an all-round security of the organization’s digital data. Through time-based risk assessments and restrictive access to sensitive data, this solution ensures that health care industry, covered entities, and business associates have an end-to-end security and are HIPAA compliant.

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