Q: Are there any penalties for sending an unencrypted email containing PHI to the intended recipient? Would this just be a violation of the CE's policy and not a privacy breach under HITECH?
The OCR continues to crack down on HIPAA breaches, but it also paused to take a look back at past incidents in two annual reports to Congress. The reports, which were released in May, summarize the reported 2011?2012 HIPAA breach and compliance activities as required by the HITECH Act. Although the data presented in the reports details the events from prior years, the causes of the breaches reported to and investigated by OCR are still relevant?and problematic?for healthcare organizations today.
To fully understand where your organization's risks lie, you not only need to have a firm grasp on risk analysis and assessment processes, you need to define these processes as well.
Cybersecurity threats, cloud computing, proliferation of mobile device technology, and the pervasiveness of social media directly affect healthcare operations and privacy and information security programs?as does the explosion of data, which makes safeguarding information assets increasingly more important and difficult.
Q: My employer is trying to monitor its systems more closely. Which systems in particular are the most important with respect to monitoring? Which activities should the organization monitor?
