This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

HIPPA Compliance Solutions

How can an IT support company help a health organization be HIPPA compliant?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is known as HIPPA. It was designed to set legal standards for protecting a person’s personal information. Any business involved with obtaining, storing or transmitting patient data must follow HIPPA regulations. A company is responsible for protecting a person’s health information. There are security measures health facilities need to undertake to be HIPPA compliant.

Administrative Compliance

When an organization wants to be HIPAA compliant, there are a number of administrative safeguards they must put in place. These are specifically defined procedures and policies that cover the conduct of employees, office setup and more. A compliance program requires a person be assigned as a privacy officer. These individuals will be responsible for completing a risk assessment on the organization yearly. This privacy officer will implement employee training as well as reviewing procedures and policies to confirm HIPPA compliance.

Find out what's happening in Santa Monicafor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Patient Health Information (PHI)

HIPPA also provides patients with specific rights when it comes to health information. They have the right to obtain and examine a copy of their health records. A patient is permitted to request corrections when they see something wrong. They also have the right to place restrictions on the use and disclosure of their health information. A patient can determine who gets to use their health information for payment as well as treatment purposes and more.

Find out what's happening in Santa Monicafor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Technical Safeguards

HIPPA requires a number of technical safeguards be put in place. The control of access to a patient’s electronic health data by only authorized persons must be established. This type of control will involve providing unique user IDs, encryption and decryption abilities, automatic log off as well as emergency access procedures and more. Tracking logs must be provided to record activities on software and hardware. There must also be IT disaster recovery plans as well as an offsite backup. Network security must also be in place.

IT Support

A healthcare organization will want to comply with HIPPA requirements. This is essential to staying in business. An IT support company like The Tech Info Group, with knowledge and experience with HIPPA compliance can help a business get compliant and maintain compliance. They can provide risk analysis, penetration tests and more. They can identify problems with HIPPA compliance and work to correct any inefficiencies.

Increased Efficiency

An IT support company will be able to analyze a company’s workflow and data path. They will be able to conduct a security metrics analysis to determine the most efficient way to comply with HIPPA requirements. Unnecessary steps can be removed from the work process. This will avoid any technical issues with HIPPA compliance and lead to increased productivity.

Business Systems

Properly following HIPPA requires the management of many different technical activities. It is important for all the different pieces to work together and prevent lost deadlines or security vulnerabilities that could be ignored. A healthcare organization can improve their patient experience with using the right IT support firm. They will know how to provide HIPPA compliance security with mobile computing, collaborative technologies as well as cloud services and more.

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?