2023 HIPAA Guide from SecurityMetrics Bridges Healthcare IT Communication Gap to Protect Patient Data

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Jan 31, 2023, 08:08 ET

OREM, Utah, Jan. 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has cracked down on HIPAA violation cases, resulting in a significant increase in fines and penalties for organizations who are in violation of HIPAA rules (HIPAA Journal).¹ With a rising interest in data protection from the public, and continued, targeted attacks by threat actors, healthcare organizations are under pressure to keep their patients' data secure, but often lack security resources to keep PHI safe.

SecurityMetrics released its 2023 Guide to HIPAA Compliance to help healthcare organizations secure their peace of mind and avoid a false sense of security. The 2023 HIPAA Guide helps healthcare IT and Risk Officers understand how to comply with the HIPAA Security, Privacy, and Breach Notification Rules–such as best practices for conducting risk assessments, training employees, testing incident response plans, and improving network security.

The updated 2023 guide includes more insights from HIPAA security analysts, improved diagrams and graphs, and cloud security for healthcare organizations. The 2023 HIPAA Guide covers the practical steps organizations need to handle the following:

Incident response plans
PHI encryption
Business associate agreements
Mobile device security
Cloud security
HIPAA-compliant emails
Remote access
Vulnerability scanning
Penetration testing

With new 2022 research data, the guide helps direct healthcare where to look for the highest risks. According to SecurityMetrics' 2022 HIPAA survey data, organizations are getting better at external security measures like formal risk assessments. For example, in 2021, only 41% of health practices conducted formal risk assessments and in 2022, 43% did so.

In other areas, healthcare continues to struggle with HIPAA and patient data security. Since 2019, surveyed organizations have decreased their training on the Security Rule by 46.4% and on the Breach Notification Rule by 53.7%.

Principal Security Analyst Jen Stone (MCIS, CCSFP, CISSP, CISA, QSA) says, "Many healthcare organizations understand the importance of HIPAA. They want to ensure the privacy and security of patient data, but they struggle because the law says what to do, not really how to do it. Our HIPAA Guide helps bridge that gap to give healthcare providers and business associates a way to implement policies, procedures, and security controls in a meaningful, HIPAA-compliant way."

"This is the most comprehensive guide on HIPAA I have found," said Crystal Hertz at National Health Foundation.

Those who would like the SecurityMetrics 2023 Guide to HIPAA Compliance can download a free PDF copy here: Download the 2023 Guide to HIPAA Compliance here.

To learn more about SecurityMetrics or HIPAA, contact 801-705-5621, email [email protected], or visit www.securitymetrics.com/hipaa.

For press inquiries contact 801-995-6516, or email [email protected].

¹ https://www.hipaajournal.com/hipaa-violation-cases/

About SecurityMetrics ( www.securitymetrics.com)

SecurityMetrics secures peace of mind for organizations that handle sensitive data. They have tested over 1 million systems for data security and compliance. Industry standards don't keep up with the threat landscape, which is why they hold their tools, training, and support to a higher, more thorough standard of performance and service, so you never have a false sense of security.

As an Approved Scanning Vendor, Qualified Security Assessor, Certified Forensic Investigator, and Managed Security provider, SecurityMetrics guides organizations through data security testing and compliance mandates (HIPAA, HITRUST, PCI, GDPR). With over 20 years of forensic investigations, penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and HIPAA and PCI compliance audits, SecurityMetrics has tested over 1 million systems for vulnerabilities. The privately held company is headquartered in Orem, Utah where it maintains a Security Operations Center (SOC) and 24/7 multilingual technical support.

SOURCE SecurityMetrics, Inc.