Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-191), also known as HIPAA, was enacted as part of a broad Congressional attempt at incremental healthcare reform.

These standards are designed to:

• Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare system by standardizing the interchange of electronic data for specified administrative and financial transactions
• Protect the security and confidentiality of electronic health information

WHAT IS HIPAA?

The HIPAA Act of 1996 outlines stringent security protection for electronic health information while maintained and while in transmission. The main areas of focus for HIPAA are:

• Transmission Protection
• Authentication and Access Control Mechanisms
• Storage Protection

WHAT ARE COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS?

In order to determine whether healthcare and related services organizations are compliant with the new HIPAA information security regulations, all aspects of the organization's security environment and practices need to be reviewed/assessed. The criteria for assessment include:

• Comprehensive review of the organization's Information Security Architecture Plan
• Information Security Technical Policies and Procedures
• Internal Security Controls Assessment process
• Network Security Threat & Vulnerability Assessment

ViewTrust ComplyVision™ solution has been designed to guide audit teams through a structured methodology that strictly follows the ISO 27001 standard mapped to the HIPAA requirements and helps prepare the HIPAA audit package complete with assessment, analysis and documentation. The solution also allows creation, maintenance and reporting of the Plan of Actions (POA) throughout the pre- and post-audit process.

ComplyVision solution provides a full view of your current security posture through self-assessment while breaking down the improvement process into straightforward, manageable and repeatable steps. Using methodical analysis, potential security gaps are identified and addressed with authentic, real-world solutions.

For Continuous compliance, consider combining the ComplyVision™ solution with the ThreatVision™ solution.

For long term log archiving and reporting consider using the LogVision™ solution.

For additional information on how ViewTrust Compliance solutions can help you in your HIPAA audit, please contact our experts at 703.627.7539, or e-mail us at compliance@viewtrust.com.