Risk assessments are required under the Health Insurance and Accountability Act of 1996, better known as HIPAA. HIPAA is the federal statute that requires healthcare providers to safeguard patient identities, medical records and protected health information (“PHI”). It further requires organizations that handle PHI to regularly review the administrative, physical and technical safeguards they have in place. Basically, HIPAA took established confidentiality healthcare practices of physicians and healthcare providers to protect patients’ information and made it law. Risk assessments are a key requirement of complying with HIPAA. Covered entities must complete a HIPAA risk assessment to determine their risks, and protect their PHI from breaches and unauthorized access to protected information. There are many components of risk assessments, which can often seem burdensome on healthcare providers. Let Lori-Ann Rickard and Lauren Sullivan guide you and your company as you tackle the risk assessments required by HIPAA.

HIPAA is very complex. So are the privacy and security initiatives that must occur to reach and maintain HIPAA compliance. Organizations need a quick, concise reference in order to meet HIPAA requirements and maintain ongoing compliance. The Practical Guide to HIPAA Privacy and Security Compliance is a one-stop resource for real-world HIPAA privacy and security advice that you can immediately apply to your organization's unique situation. This how-to reference explains what HIPAA is about, what it requires, and what you can do to achieve and maintain compliance. It describes the HIPAA.

This User’s Guide is intended to support the design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, and quality evaluation of registries created to increase understanding of patient outcomes. For the purposes of this guide, a patient registry is an organized system that uses observational study methods to collect uniform data (clinical and other) to evaluate specified outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure, and that serves one or more predetermined scientific, clinical, or policy purposes. A registry database is a file (or files) derived from the registry. Although registries can serve many purposes, this guide focuses on registries created for one or more of the following purposes: to describe the natural history of disease, to determine clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of health care products and services, to measure or monitor safety and harm, and/or to measure quality of care. Registries are classified according to how their populations are defined. For example, product registries include patients who have been exposed to biopharmaceutical products or medical devices. Health services registries consist of patients who have had a common procedure, clinical encounter, or hospitalization. Disease or condition registries are defined by patients having the same diagnosis, such as cystic fibrosis or heart failure. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews.

This updated edition re-published in July 2013, includes 2013 HIPAA Omnibus changes and simplifies the overwhelming complexity of the HIPAA Privacy and Security regulations. HIPAA standards and implementation specifications can be understood with the help of this simple guide. Risk management program can be built with step-by-step implementation guide, risk self-assessment, set of comprehensive policies and procedures, privacy, security, office productivity forms and ready to use templates. The book also contains HIPAA awareness quiz to test the basic understanding of rules and provides examples of workable solutions and documents. More about Robert K. Brzezinski MBA, CHPS, CISA, CPHIMS can be found at www.bizwit.us

Use this book to learn how to conduct a timely and thorough Risk Analysis and Assessment documenting all risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI), which is a key component of the HIPAA Security Rule. The requirement is a focus area for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) during breach investigations and compliance audits. This book lays out a plan for healthcare organizations of all types to successfully comply with these requirements and use the output to build upon the cybersecurity program. With the proliferation of cybersecurity breaches, the number of healthcare providers, payers, and business associates investigated by the OCR has risen significantly. It is not unusual for additional penalties to be levied when victims of breaches cannot demonstrate that an enterprise-wide risk assessment exists, comprehensive enough to document all of the risks to ePHI. Why is it that so many covered entities and business associates fail to comply with this fundamental safeguard? Building a HIPAA Compliant Cybersecurity Program cuts through the confusion and ambiguity of regulatory requirements and provides detailed guidance to help readers: Understand and document all known instances where patient data exist Know what regulators want and expect from the risk analysis process Assess and analyze the level of severity that each risk poses to ePHI Focus on the beneficial outcomes of the process: understanding real risks, and optimizing deployment of resources and alignment with business objectives What You’ll Learn Use NIST 800-30 to execute a risk analysis and assessment, which meets the expectations of regulators such as the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) Understand why this is not just a compliance exercise, but a way to take back control of protecting ePHI Leverage the risk analysis process to improve your cybersecurity program Know the value of integrating technical assessments to further define risk management activities Employ an iterative process that continuously assesses the environment to identify improvement opportunities Who This Book Is For Cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance professionals working for organizations responsible for creating, maintaining, storing, and protecting patient information

"This book is for nurses, billing and insurance specialists, business associates, physicians and office managers. A resource for help understanding risk analysis, security implementation process, HIPAA and HITECH strategies"--Provided by publisher.

The escalation of security breaches involving personally identifiable information (PII) has contributed to the loss of millions of records over the past few years. Breaches involving PII are hazardous to both individuals and org. Individual harms may include identity theft, embarrassment, or blackmail. Organ. harms may include a loss of public trust, legal liability, or remediation costs. To protect the confidentiality of PII, org. should use a risk-based approach. This report provides guidelines for a risk-based approach to protecting the confidentiality of PII. The recommend. here are intended primarily for U.S. Fed. gov¿t. agencies and those who conduct business on behalf of the agencies, but other org. may find portions of the publication useful.