Federal law has mandated HIPAA compliance since 1996. Violations bring fines that are immediate and costly, and repeat offenders risk losing their license too. HIPAA regulations are complex and maintaining a compliant database takes real effort, so healthcare providers often question why it’s necessary.
Understanding HIPAA
Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1996. It protects confidential patient health information, including electronic medical records. The law increased security around patient information and gave patients more control over the release of their own health information. It also set a universal set of privacy standards, along with penalties for violations.
In the decade since HIPAA passed, healthcare providers have scrambled to keep up with its privacy guidelines. In fact, providers now store, access, and share more confidential information electronically each year than ever before. Typically, healthcare providers have used data encryption to help secure this information and ensure compliance with HIPAA standards. Lately, more and more healthcare providers are looking for additional methods for creating HIPAA compliant databases. Standardized penalties drive much of this effort, but healthcare providers have other reasons too for wanting a HIPAA compliant database.
Reasons for HIPAA database compliance
The reason for HIPAA database compliance is simple and straightforward. It’s the law. HIPAA requires compliance from every healthcare provider that handles electronic transactions of confidential patient information. For example, this includes hospitals, general and specialized physicians, home health organizations and service providers, and long-term care providers. These providers must install, monitor, and update hardware and software that keeps data secure through storage, updates, access, and transmission. Companies found in violation face real financial consequences, with fines running $100 to $50,000 per violation, per year. The exact amount also depends on the violation’s severity, the number of patients affected, and how negligent the provider was.
Tools for securing electronic data
- Data encryption. Protects electronic medical records during storage and transfer, and also ensures that only the intended recipient can access the files.
- Firewalls. Also prevents unauthorized access to electronic data.
- Electronic auditing systems. Also requires users to sign in and logs each user’s activity on the record database.
- Professional audits. The most reliable way to confirm current HIPAA compliance is a professional audit from an experienced, trained auditor. These audits reveal holes in your system, so you can close security gaps immediately.
Turning to the cloud for HIPAA compliance database management
Cloud-based databases have revolutionized the ease with which companies are achieving HIPAA compliance. Indeed, physical theft of records ranks as the number one cause of data security breaches. Therefore, cloud storage solutions have been the catalyst for a significant reduction in HIPAA violations within the healthcare industry.
Healthcare providers who want to outsource their database’s installation, migration, and management should look for a managed host provider. In particular, that provider needs to be well versed in HIPAA regulations. Want to learn more about using cloud-based hosting to ensure HIPAA compliance for your healthcare company? Contact a local data center to speak with a customer service representative today.
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