Healthcare regulatory compliance in 2011
With new regulations in HIPAA affecting close to more than half of most health care providers’ processes and systems, the fact that these regulations have set deadlines and guidelines has not made compliance any easier for these health care providers. HIPAA has brought about quite a change in the way health care professionals manage and safeguard personal and patient health care information and data. HIPAA has brought forth an added onus on ways to secure patient information and also on the different systems and processes that help achieve compliance. So the healthcare providers now have to work on defining and facilitating It compliance along with their security policies and also ensure ways to manage data access and risk. The compliance focus is also on enhanced audit capabilities and protection.
To meet all the healthcare compliance requirements by healthcare providers will require quite a bit of planning since most healthcare compliance requirements such as HIPAA Compliance demands that healthcare providers
- Be aware of how to manage and execute security measures for all the health related information of the patients
- Have intrusion devices installed to keep away unauthorized access to patient’s health information
- Also conduct risk assessments and have the best technical and administrative safeguarding mechanisms in place to protect all data effectively.
So whether you are a doctor, a dentist or even some who handles Patient Health Information, you will be required to conform to compliance regulations set forth in both the HIPAA and HITECH acts. Since most medical practitioners fall under the category called Covered Entities, such entities are required to be HIPAA and HITECH compliant. So if you are a medical practitioner and you serve patients then you have to follow all the necessary healthcare compliance measures. In an age where corporate governance has assumed grave importance, healthcare providers understand that security and governance risk management controls are perhaps the only means to ensure all policies and procedures are enforced.
2011 is the year when healthcare providers need to be practical in their selection of the appropriate set of controls for risk mitigation purposes. And given the need for speed and accuracy most healthcare organizations should prefer automated controls and technology since analysis and logging of data becomes much easier. Also ensure that your security vendor can provide you with ways and means to automate processes and also offer optimum protection against anticipated threats. Healthcare professionals should also ensure that they construct their security models in such a manner that only qualified individuals can access patient’s private information.
Processing your request, Please wait....
