HIPAA Security Rule: Key Requirements and Risk Assessment Insights
If you’re in the healthcare industry, you’ve most definitely heard about HIPAA. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created to protect your personal health information from being released without your permission. It’s important for everyone involved in dealing with or managing patient data – medical providers, pharmacies, insurance companies, and third-party administrators…
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Sep 19, 2024
HIPAA Business Associate Agreement – Complete Guide
Healthcare businesses often assume that if a vendor is trusted or has experience working with another healthcare service before, they’re automatically covered. But HIPAA doesn’t work on assumptions. Without a BAA (Business Associate Agreement), even well-intentioned data sharing can turn into a compliance nightmare. This is because businesses need assurance that service providers accessing PHI…
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Sep 19, 2024
The HITECH Act: For Health IT, Quality Care and Safety
Data breaches are a real problem in the healthcare industry. The HITECH Act was introduced in 2009 in the United States to strengthen HIPAA’s privacy and access goals even as it encouraged the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs). HIPAA, introduced more than a decade ago in 1996, wasn’t written with the explosion of Internet…
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Sep 17, 2024
How to Assess HIPAA Compliant Data Centers
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the technology-adoption pace of the medical sector. While the healthcare industry shifting to online processing models, HIPAA regulators didn’t impose any fines for non-compliance in 2019, allowing the telehealth sector to grow swiftly and offer online healthcare services. With things returning to normal, HIPAA is back on its mission to ensure…
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Sep 16, 2024
Healthcare Cybersecurity: Essential Practices for Protection
In October 2021, a Japanese hospital was forced to shut down operations for months. Malicious actors encrypted medical data of 85,000 patients and threatened to leak it unless ransom was paid. This is not an isolated incident – businesses depend on the cloud to accelerate workflow but don’t secure it unless an incident occurs. Cybercriminals…
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Sep 14, 2024
HIPAA Compliance for Software – How to Get Compliant Certification
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a US federal law that mandates healthcare organizations, including their vendors, with access to PHI to implement standard best practices to protect patient data (such as medical records) and other personal health information. This law extends to cloud-hosted tech firms that use software applications to process…
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Sep 14, 2024