The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is the key standard for ensuring that sensitive patient data is protected when transmitted across the internet. Healthcare companies who deal with protected health information (PHI) must have in place physical, network, and process security measures to protect the data when sending it across email and servers. The administrative simplification provision within the HIPAA law specifically mandates standard transaction and code sets, identifies, security, and privacy rules across the healthcare industry. With these measures in place, healthcare practices need to install security to protect their clients. Increasingly, the use of mobile devices within the medical profession to collaborate and communicate patient information is becoming a concern, as many forms of frequently used communications are not HIPAA compliant, such as SMS, Skype, and sometimes even emails set up in medical offices. Reaching out to a HIPAA compliant provider of Information Technology can ensure that your mobile, as well as in office laptops and servers are protecting your client information.
The Road to HIPAA Compliance in Information Technology
Along with healthcare practitioners, other businesses which offer services to the healthcare industry need to have practices in place to safeguard data when it is transmitted across the internet. The guidelines of HIPAA are complex, and in order to be properly trained companies must utilize legitimate HIPAA trainings in order to confirm that the compliance and implemented security awareness is consistent for all members of the workplace. It is also common for HIPAA compliant businesses to be audited by HIPAA compliant experts to further confirm that their products, services, and procedures uphold the standards. IT firms, who touch, see, or hear PHI, must sign a business associate agreement with the covered entity before providing services and must be HIPAA compliant like the covered entity. Technical Safeguards are included within HIPAA compliance which have provisions for electronic patient health information (ePHI). These provisions include that all ePHI, whether in transfer or at rest, must be encrypted to NIST Standards once it is communicated beyond an organization’s internal firewalled servers. This encryption practice guarantees that any breach of PHI renders the data unusable, unreadable, or undecipherable to the hackers. Medical and dental practitioners need managed IT to apply cutting-edge technology while freeing up internal healthcare staff to focus on patient needs.
HIPAA Compliant IT Security, Emails, and Servers
As the HIPAA laws affect increasingly more industries which work alongside of healthcare professionals, business partners to medical and dental professionals in the field of Information Technology have evolved from providing a luxury to an absolute necessity. Healthcare providers must enlist IT professionals who understand and are compliant with the requirements for patient access and IT security associated with HIPAA compliance. When technology is set-up correctly, HIPAA compliant measures will protect patient information across all avenues of technology being used.
Knoxville IT Provider Frees Healthcare Professionals to Focus on Patients
At Elemental Technology Solutions, we offer the most up-to-date IT security, technical safeguards, and policies to guarantee that your storage, email, and transmittal of PHI is always in compliance. We have also undergone extensive, HIPAA complaint training under HIPAA certified trainers in our work place. You can rest easy knowing our number one priority is keeping your medical records and protected health information safe and secure freeing you up to do the work that your clients need. A call into Elemental Technology Solutions can set you up with a free HIPAA IT Compliance assessment and get the HIPAA Compliance for IT at your medical practice today. We can be reached online or by calling 1 (888) 499-5898.
