What is HIPAA & HITECH compliance?
HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, sets the standard for protecting sensitive patient data. It applies to any company that deals with protected health information (PHI). Without efficient tools, HIPAA compliance can become a burden that consumes entire days or weeks for your IT team. Finding an effective way to meet these challenges is imperative.
HITECH stands for the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and is directly related to HIPAA. The HITECH Act urges the adoption of electronic health records (EHR) to improve quality of care for patients. As healthcare organizations adopt health information technology, personal health information (PHI) is subject to risk while transferred between hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and insurers using traditional, unsecure file transfer methods such as FTP. It is a necessity that organizations take proper measures to secure this data at rest and in motion, to ensure the privacy and security standards of HIPAA and HITECH.
Compliance Requirements:
The basic goal of HIPAA’s Security Rule is protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health information (ePHI). The Security Rule is separated into three types of safeguards: administrative, physical, and technical.
HIPAA privacy and security compliance is strictly enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and can result in substantial penalties.
Managed File Transfer, HIPAA & HITECH:
In an industry that involves constantly moving and updating patient records, maintaining security and compliance requires a robust method of protecting any transfer of data. A comprehensive managed file transfer solution directly supports an overall HIPAA-compliance strategy by
- protecting the privacy and security of electronic health records when it is accessed or shared,
- providing technical safeguards that monitor file transfer activity, and
- promoting interoperability between hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and insurers with an easy-to-use solution for secure PHI transfer.
In addition, a good MFT solution will generate detailed audit trails and reporting of every file transfer, identifying the users, the recipients, and the file names transmitted. Just what an auditor needs to see.
