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In the healthcare space, failing to ensure HIPAA compliance for your organization can be a costly and complicated mistake.
Even though the majority of organizations that need to worry about HIPAA-compliance are often within the medical sector, the need extends to any company that deals with the storage or transmission of electronic medical records.
This means that there is a need for HIPAA compliance for IT businesses and other technology-centered businesses that may be involved in the handling of electronic patient records or privacy.
In the most basic terms, HIPAA regulations dictate howboth healthcare organizations—and providers in other verticals that work with healthcare clients—collect, store, handle, and secure patient data. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into HIPAA compliance for IT professionals, addressing the ins and outs of HIPAA regulations as well as how to ensure your company maintains compliance.
What is HIPAA?
HIPAA is an acronym that stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This federal law mandated the creation of national standards to keep sensitive patient health information from being disclosed—that is, without the patient’s knowledge or consent.
In practice, HIPAA is essentially a set of rules and regulations that govern the acceptable collection, storage, and sharing of patient data.
HIPAA has become more relevant than ever with the passing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in 2009. The purpose of HITECH was to encourage the use of EHRs, or electronic health records, in order to manage patient data more safely and confidentially.
Of course, managing patient records through digital methods came with its own challenges. HITECH expanded on the security and privacy requirements initially put in place by HIPAA and increased the penalties for HIPAA violations. With the digitization of healthcare records prompted by HITECH, IT providers have become more and more relevant in the healthcare sector. That’s why HIPAA IT security has become increasingly important for IT providers to stay updated on.
Must-know terms for HIPAA IT security
Before we dive any further into the specific rules of HIPAA for healthcare IT compliance, let’s outline some key terms to ensure that you have a full understanding of the requirements of HIPAA compliance for IT professionals.
- HIPAA Privacy Rule: This is the main portion of HIPAA that is relevant to IT providers. The HIPAA Privacy Rule is the portion of the law that details the requirements for complying with HIPAA’s privacy standards.
- Protected health information (PHI): This is any health information that could reasonably be used to identify an individual and relates to that person’s health or healthcare services they’ve received.
- Electronic protected health information (EPHI): EPHI is simply the digital version of PHI, as described above.
- Covered entity: Any organization subject to HIPAA is called a “covered entity.” These are normally healthcare organizations or anyone processing protected health information.
- Business associate: This is where IT providers usually come into play. A “business associate” is a company that works with a covered entity to perform any function that involves the use of protected health information. HIPAA regulations apply to both covered entities and business associates.
How does HIPAA relate to IT?
HIPAA is crucial for any healthcare organization—virtually all of these organizations are covered entities under HIPAA. But these days, there are also many healthcare IT providers that fall under the business associate designation. Many healthcare companies rely on IT providers in one sense or another to help streamline operations, manage ticketing, consolidate reporting and analytics, execute automated patch management, and more.
Healthcare IT compliance is centered around protecting EPHI, or electronic protected health information. HIPAA’s security rules task healthcare IT providers with maintaining “reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for protecting” EPHI. IT providers working with healthcare organizations can assist in this by helping to implement strong cybersecurity posturing to defend the organization against cyber attacks.
What are the HIPAA IT requirements?
There are numerous HIPAA requirements that apply to business associates like IT providers. Here are some of the key HIPAA IT requirements that an IT provider will need to meet in order to earn a HIPAA IT compliance certification.
- Risk analysis documentation: Covered entities and business associates must conduct and document risk analysis of all of their information systems. You can think of this as a HIPAA IT audit, which will allow you to discover any weak points that need more security in order to keep protected health information (PHI) secure.
- Personnel training: One of HIPAA’s main stipulations is that anyone working with PHI must receive training on HIPAA’s rules and regulations. In order for an IT provider to become HIPAA-certified, individuals at the company will need to have undergone adequate training.
- HIPAA documentation: In addition to documenting potential risks, any covered entity or business associate must have a written plan in place that explains how they intend to ensure HIPAA compliance is being met.
- Security officer assignment: Part of HIPAA compliance is having a dedicated HIPAA security and privacy officer who is responsible for ensuring HIPAA compliance. For many business entities, the designated HIPAA officer also performs other roles. For large hospitals or healthcare facilities, a HIPAA officer might be a full-time job.
- Breach reporting: HIPAA states that, in the case of a security breach, the breach must be reported in a timely fashion through official channels. Fines may be assessed, and in some cases, a written plan detailing how to avoid future breaches can be required.
HIPAA violation penalties
A HIPAA violation occurs when any practice or action does not comply with HIPAA regulations, typically endangering PHI. Some common types of violations include unauthorized access of healthcare records, failure to conduct risk analysis, or failure to remedy security risks.
In addition to the desire to remain on the right side of the law, many organizations are motivated to achieve HIPAA compliance to avoid fines and even jail time.
If a HIPAA violation does occur, criminal charges are possible—but most of the time, a fine is assessed. There are four tiers of HIPAA violations:
Tier 1: Issues that a covered entity or business associate was unaware of and could not have realistically avoided. Possible fines range from $100 to $50,000.
Tier 2: Issues that a covered entity or business associate was unaware of and could not have realistically avoided without a large amount of care. Possible fines range from $1,000 to $50,000.
Tier 3: Issues suffered as a direct result of willfully neglecting HIPAA rules where an attempt has been made to correct the violation. Possible fines range from $10,000 to $50,000.
Tier 4: Issues suffered as a direct result of wilfully neglecting HIPAA rules where no attempt has been made to correct the violation. Possible fines range from $50,000 to $1.5M per year.
How to ensure HIPAA compliance for IT
Now that you understand the importance of HIPAA compliance for IT, how will you go about ensuring that your team achieves it? Here are some key strategies that will help with HIPAA compliance for IT professionals.
#1: Take a proactive approach to cybersecurity
Due to the high value of medical data, healthcare is one of the most commonly targeted industries for cyberattacks. Implementing tools and processes like automated patch management, endpoint protection, and controlling access can help your systems stay secure 24/7.
#2: Make compliance part of your culture
HIPAA compliance for IT is not a joke—so make sure your team doesn’t take it as one. Build a mindset of compliance by implementing routine training programs and refreshers, developing and enforcing clear policies for data protection, and ensuring buy-in from stakeholders at all different levels of the organization.
#3: Choose vendors carefully
Ensuring you choose a vendor with HIPAA IT compliance certification is crucially important. Make sure that any IT provider you choose has proven success in the healthcare field and offers products or services that can scale with your organization. Choosing an IT vendor that you trust to communicate, help, and guide your strategy is paramount.
#4: Embrace AI and automation
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation can be huge differentiators for healthcare organizations that are juggling the demands of both legacy systems and new-age technology, all while trying to ensure that patient data remains safe. Atera has accumulated years of experience with healthcare-facing IT, and our AI Copilot tool—powered by Agentic AI—is ideal for helping your operations run smoothly and efficiently.
By leveraging Atera’s Agentic AI, IT teams in healthcare can streamline compliance, enhance security, and minimize risks associated with regulations. Atera’s platform analyzes IT environments in real-time, detecting potential security risks that could lead to HIPAA violations. With Atera, you get flagged when unusual access patterns or unauthorized access attempts are detected, making it easier to protect electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI).
Ensuring HIPAA compliance for IT professionals
If your organization has anything to do with electronic patient records, setting yourselves up for success when it comes to HIPAA compliance for IT begins with choosing the right IT service provider. Atera’s all-in-one IT management platformsimplifies your day-to-day work and helps you maintain HIPAA compliance.
To that end, Atera is HIPAA compliant and obtained its HIPAA Seal of Compliance from CompliancyGroup, validating its adherence to HIPAA laws and regulations. This verification reflects Atera’s commitment to maintaining stringent security and privacy standards to protect sensitive healthcare information.
For organizations that are on Atera’s Enterprise and Superpower plans, Atera offers the option to enter into a BAA (Business Associate Agreement). You can request a signed BAA by getting in touch with us at [email protected]. Want to give Atera a try? You can take it for a spin, including our industry-leading AI capabilities, with our 30-day free trial, no credit card required.
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