Introduction:
In 1996, the US Congress introduced the health insurance portability and accountability act. This term is commonly known as HIPAA. The main objective of the HIPAA Privacy policies is to truly increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the healthcare system in the US. Throughout the years' different rules have been included in the HIPAA. Those rules mostly focus on protecting highly sensitive patient information.
Different entities are covered under the HIPAA rules. It includes healthcare, clearinghouses, health care providers, health plans, etc. This also includes the electronic transmission of different information. Such as referral authorization, health claims, and coordination of benefits. Different entities covered under HIPAA are institutions, individuals, and organizations.
The institutions also include government agencies and research institutions. In the year 2013, a new omnibus rule was included in HIPAA. It is based on health information technology for the economic and clinical health act. Later the inclusion extended to IT contractors, business associates, attorneys, accountants, and cloud services.
HIPAA Security and Privacy Rules:
Every HIPAA Privacy rule mostly focuses on protecting patients' medical records and other public health information. This is the basic standard of protection that is provided under HIPAA training. This privacy policy is highly responsible for giving the patients rights over their information. It helps in protecting the information by covering different entities.
The basic understanding of the privacy rule has the proper process for using and disclosing public health information. There is a subset section of the security rule according to the privacy rule. It specifically applies to electronic public health information. The security rule mandates several factors.
- Technical Factors:
This particular subsection focuses on technology with different policies. This is the process that will have collective protection from technology. It includes having control access to electronic public health information.
- Audit Control:
This particular rule completely refers to the recording mechanism and examining activities. It focuses on all the data in the electronic public health information system.
- Access:
This rule clarifies as read, writing, and modification along with the communication of the data. It includes applications files and systems. The complete control should have an automatic log-off and unique user identification system. Most importantly, it will also have the proper access during an emergency. Apart from that, it will also include data encryption.
- Authentication:
This particular rule is mandatory for the identity verification of an individual or entity. It is mandatory for those seeking complete access to the protected data.
- Integrity:
This rule includes the procedure and policies for the complete protection of the data. It includes the destruction and alteration of the data and any unauthorized access.
- Physical Factors:
This particular rule is completely focusing on different physical measures procedures and policies. It is only for the standard protection of electronic information systems. It also relates buildings and equipment in both environmental and natural understanding. It will have a complete overview of unauthorized access to the data. Different physical safeguards standards are listed below for better understanding.
- Workstation Usage:
This rule is better for different businesses using workstations. It includes different electronic media which is being stored in that particular environment. Any workstation device working with the patient billing might not have other programs running in the background.
- Workstation Security:
This rule applies to implement the physical safeguarding of the workstations properly. It includes unauthorized access protection for electronic public health information. Every workstation follows different rules for protecting and containing electronic public health information. This rule completely focuses on protecting it from unauthorized access. As a result, the workstation needs to be in a secure room completely inaccessible to unauthorized individuals.