Industry Solutions - Healthcare
In the twelve years since enactment of the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), healthcare providers and associated entities have spent countless hours and dollars making sure they are compliant with respect to security and privacy of patient information. And it is not just HIPAA. There are myriad state laws that complement, enable or preempt HIPAA that also must be considered.
Similar initiatives are underway in the European Union. The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party is an independent European advisory body on data protection and privacy. Its working document, adopted in 2007, provides broad recommendations on topics relating to Electronic Health Records systems (EHR) and the data protection rights of patients.
These types of initiatives are crucial to the protection of patients around the world, but present challenges to healthcare providers, employers and their many partner and associate organizations.
Even as these organizations struggle to meet various standards – under productivity and cost pressures like any other business – they have been racing to improve their IT operations. Sometimes the goals of meeting regulatory standards and achieving automation, can seem to work at cross purposes.
As more and more patient information becomes digitized productivity gains can certainly ensue. And healthcare providers are going to great lengths to make sure this information is protected against unauthorized or improper access.
Protecting obsolete as well as active information
Are they taking the same care with patient data that is no longer accessed but still exists on physical storage media?
That’s where PeakData comes in. As organizations continually refresh their storage technology infrastructure we help them mitigate the risks associated with data that is no longer accessed – data, for example, from failed drives in a disk array or subsystems that have outlived their useful lives.
As anyone familiar with HIPAA understands, liability for protection of patient data begins and ends with the “covered entity.” Third parties cannot and will not insulate the owner of the patient information from risk.
That doesn’t leave the provider out in the cold, however. The law does recognize and reward those who implement and strictly adhere to best practices. PeakData is about best practices in data eradication to ensure patient data is not compromised. Let us show you how you can protect patient information at every level of its lifecycle.