Cloud solutions have enduring value in healthcare
We’re long past the time when healthcare entities could justify being hesitant about cloud computing. It has surpassed on-site IT in terms of reliability and security if you know how to manage it properly. Just take a look at all the business benefits of cloud computing! Easy information access The [...]
4 facts about HIPAA and your IT
HIPAA’s rules pertaining to IT are problematic to say the least, but things have become much clearer over the course of the past year. However, there are still a few areas in which your office might not be compliant. This isn’t necessarily through negligence on your part, but rather a [...]
Why Healthcare needs Mobile Device Management
Surveys and studies show that wireless device usage in the healthcare industry is growing at an exponential rate, falling in line with the general trend in today’s society. The IT staff must work harder to monitor all the devices using the network, but there are Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions [...]
How to defend against insider threats
First off, what is an insider threat in healthcare? An insider threat is an individual inside an organization discovered to have been accessing healthcare records without authorization. Healthcare companies must take steps to reduce the potential for insider threats, which is their top source of security incidents. #1 Educate - [...]
How HIPAA Impacts Social Media Usage
Social Media can be an effective tool for sharing experiences, building professional connections, and broadcasting conventional healthcare announcements to the public. However, careless posts that have client or patient-specific information could ruin the reputation of any healthcare organization. On April 14, 2003, the "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" (HIPAA) [...]
Mobile devices and HIPAA compliance
Mobile devices have revolutionized the healthcare industry: They’re convenient and significantly improve work efficiency and patients’ satisfaction. Yet they also come with risks. Patient data handled by those devices can be leaked. That’s why every healthcare provider needs to be extra careful about data security when using mobile devices. Why [...]
How HIPAA wards off ransomware threats
Hospitals and healthcare organizations are usually the first victims of malware attacks. WannaCry ransomware -- malicious software that encrypts files until the victim decides to pay the Bitcoin ransom -- took advantage of this when it hit several healthcare institutions last month. With more malware expected to target the healthcare [...]
What celebrities can teach us about HIPAA
Two trends have been rising in popularity in tandem: HIPAA compliance audits and social media. Obviously both of these are far too important to be correlated directly, but they do intersect with each other. Social media tends to push people toward oversharing, and that’s definitely something you don’t want when [...]
3 Reminders for HIPAA compliance in 2017
Even if notable punishments and fines for HIPAA non-compliance have only been doled out over the last 6 years, data privacy regulations have been around for 14. And with each passing year, these rules evolve in ways that make it near impossible to keep up without an expert on hand. [...]
Record $5.5 million HIPAA penalty doled out
If your organization hosts data regulated by the US government, you're familiar with the scare tactics used to sell hosting services. But what lurks behind those vague threats of expensive lawsuits and unfair liability burdens? HIPAA is nearly 100 pages long and few providers actually know what it requires. Unfortunately, [...]