HITEQ Resources & Events

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has recently announced the release of a new set of FAQs that seeks to address whether business associates of a HIPAA covered entity may block or terminate access by the covered entity to the protected health information maintained by the business associate for or on behalf of the covered entity.

It is common practice today to encrypt data at rest, that is, data stored on servers. This is especially applicable to health centers who are less frequently actively transporting data across disparate networks. Like many smaller healthcare organizations, Health Centers are particularly vulnerable to potential attack and infiltration by data hackers for several reasons: they tend to have fewer technical support staff, resource limitations make it harder to assess, implement, and maintain safe data practices, and organizational inertia limits preventive action when no threat is perceived. 

This YouTube video provides an exciting ransomware re-enactment that helps explain how a ransomware incident occurs, common mistakes and methods for mitigation. It also includes a link to a Ransomware Readiness Assessment by the security vendor TrendMicro.

In order to comply with the Security Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), you need to maintain an ongoing security program. The HIPAA Security Rule mandates security standards to safeguard electronic protected health information (ePHI) maintained by electronic health record (EHR) technology, with detailed attention to how ePHI is stored, accessed, transmitted, and audited. This rule is different from the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which requires safeguards to protect the privacy of protected health information (PHI) and sets limits and conditions on the use and disclosure of PHI. 

This article written by Dr. John Halamka, CIO at Harvard Medical School and a Health IT adoption thought-leader, provides examples from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on best practices for healthcare providers in trying to manage social media efforts.