How to Remain HIPAA Compliant In Data Storage

How to Remain HIPAA Compliant

Healthcare organizations must ensure that their information and that of patients stays protected, secured, and easily accessible. Many healthcare facilities are switching to the simplicity offered by improved access to information through cloud technology. However, in order to avert breaching of the law and remain healthcare compliant, a healthcare facility should consider seeking help of HIPAA-compliant cloud storage. This storage not only offers improved performance but also solid protection for data secured in the servers. Here’s how cloud servers protect your data.

Data centers in multiple locations

Providers store physical data in multiple locations, with high-security standards in place to protect everything. HIPAA compliant data centers keep healthcare data much more secure. These centers understand the requirements the law puts forward. Any breach of the law arising from mistakes of the data storage service providers could hit a healthcare enterprise hard.

Data redundancy

In data redundancy, a database or data storage technology is held in separate locations. When you have data securely stored in different or multiple locations, it reduces the risk of loss or damage. Catastrophic loss of data due to sabotage, theft, or natural disaster can cost healthcare facilities a lot of money and possible lawsuits because they don’t meet healthcare compliance.

Storing a customer’s data in a primary database server and backing it up in a second server for redundancy increases security and reduces the risk of data loss. When updates occur in the primary database, the system replicates them to the disaster recovery facility or backup database in real time.

Conduct Regular Risk Assessments

HIPAA requires healthcare enterprises to know what they are doing when they conduct their risk assessment. Security vulnerabilities, if not checked, will inadvertently create violations of HIPAA, something that could get you into trouble.

For example, a cloud server provider may store your files and send email notifications confirming when a file has been transferred and stored properly. If you make a mistake and receive that confirmation notice in a non-encrypted email box, you have already created a vulnerability. This could put you into problems with healthcare compliance regulations.

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