subject: Automated Compliance Management Solution To Ensure Hipaa Hitech Compliance [print this page] Due to the exponential rise in health care frauds, the federal government is allowing no laxity in enforcement activities with respect to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009. Hence compliance and auditing have essentially become an integral part of life for any person in the healthcare industry,whether it is a medium to large medical provider, a hospital, a health care clearing house, provider of health care services or is pursuing medical research and deals with patient health information (PHI) directly or indirectly, through an intermediary.
Though most medical practitioners, Business Associates, and Covered Entities do understand the importance of HITECH/HIPAA compliance, issues such as high costs of compliance process and on-going sustainability, lack of adequate time to focus on HITECH/HIPAA compliance requirements, and lack of adequate knowledge regarding HIPAA/HITECH audit, make the compliance process difficult.
In such a scenario what medical practitioners and medical providers need is an automated HIPAA/HITECH compliance management solution that makes HIPAA and HITECH compliance easy and cost effective. Such a solution being automated, helps to resolve any processes or systems that are out of compliance quickly. Moreover, with data privacy laws made more stringent with the 2009 HITECH Act, the availability of an effective compliance management solution makes it possible to ensure proper implementation of appropriate controls and safeguards to prevent unauthorized access and disclosure of sensitive patient data.
The following are some of the important features of best of breed compliance management solutions.
Continuous Security and Compliance with Real-time dashboards
Do it once - Multiple Regulation Harmonization
Configurable citation and policy based Risk Model with real-time risk status
Ready-to-use pre-packaged contentpolicies, best practices, assessment questions, with the ability to fully and quickly customize
Complete cloud-based service with no hardware or software investments required
Completely customizable to the business needs
Extensive Reportingrisk reports and compliance reports on demand
Single and centralized repository for all compliance related evidence
Integrated External BA and Vendor management
Easy plug-in, if one also needs PCI-DSS compliance
Simple to implement and easy to use
Compliance activity email reminders
Thus with an automated compliance management solution medical practitioners and medical providers can not only focus on their core profession but also achieve and maintain security and compliance with the regulations set forth by both the HIPAA and HITECH Acts.
