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Thursday, April 25, 2019

HIPAA Management Solutions Compliance For Healthcare Institutions

By Nancy West


Information on healthcare institution administration and their patients are stored in their database. These are confidential and needs protection against malicious intentions. It has private and pertinent data that are not for the public. The regulation that requires them to comply is HIPAA management solutions.

This Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is under federal law. It primarily simplifies administration, keeps healthcare insurance records, secures electronic records, and protects healthcare information confidentiality. The right as to who can read their medical records is one of the rights of the patient embedded in this act.

In order to comply with all those points, institutions can incorporate document management systems software into their database mainframe. This software stores, tracks, records and manages important information. It can handle large amounts of volume and helps in organizing the files. This is a document repository of the institution which can be easily searched and retrieved.

Additional features, on top of those already included in the management system, are required by this law. User authentication would ensure that only allowed and authorized personnel have access to private information. The system needs to be secure enough to prevent prohibited access from occurring. Multi factor authentication can help in securing it more by sending a temporary security code. This also minimizes the occurrence of cyber attacks.

In relation, they should install electronic security systems like firewalls and cyber security tools. It comes with an operating system which includes software for virus protection and spyware removal. This ensures that sensitive administrative information as well as patient records does not get into malicious hands. They should always keep notes to remind them in updating these systems regularly. It not only maximizes data protection but it also has comprehensive information and protection on the current trends in cyber attacks.

It is necessary to arrange and group information in accordance to their importance and sensitivity. They may leave benign and common data without security locks as well as encryption on them. On the other hand, the important ones should be assigned at a particular security level ensuring access allowance only to its authorized people.

Encryption means translating and encoding information that only authorized people can access and read. The cryptographic algorithm translates the plain text into a jumble of numbers and letters that is impossible to read by those unauthorized. It would be better if they can get a systems software with a higher bit of encryption to increase impossibility of breach.

Their records have to reflect transparency and honesty. A simple audit trail can show who have read a particular file. Only authorized people can change and update any information in them. Meanwhile, it is the system administrator who can modify the security level of certain information and people allowed for access provided there is a commendation from upper management.

Unforeseen events may happen so to prepare, they should have backups to recover their files. These events may either be software problems, natural calamities, and cyber attacks. There is an off site center where their provider keeps their backups. It is part of their compliance to the act. Their provider has a set of backups in case failures in their systems occur.




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