The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA is a challenging Act for thousands of companies in the United States. It sets the standard for sensitive patient data protection in the country. If your organization deals with sensitive healthcare data, ensuring HIPAA compliance is vital. In December 2020, the HHS had found organizations non-compliant with HIPAA in 69% of its investigations. So, even though compliance with the Act is time-consuming, it is also vital. […]

HHS’ Office for Civil Rights will not impose penalties for potential HIPAA violations of healthcare providers and their business associates who use online or web-based scheduling applications to coordinate COVID-19 vaccine appointments. Five Details ONE: OCR on Jan. 19 announced its enforcement discretion, which is effective immediately and has a retroactive date of Dec. 11, 2020. TWO: The enforcement discretion aims to help speed up the vaccination process for HIPAA-covered entities, which must quickly schedule […]

This landmark law imposes stringent privacy and security mandates on health care providers—and most of their IT vendors. HIPAA summary: What is HIPAA? HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is a law passed in 1996 that transformed many of the ways in which the healthcare industry operated in the United States. The law had many important and far-reaching effects, but from the perspective of IT pros, its most important provisions are mandates that […]

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic through Dec. 3, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued citations arising from 263 inspections for violations relating to the coronavirus, resulting in proposed penalties of more than $3.5 million, the DOL said in a Dec. 11 press release. Inspections have led the agency to cite employers for failures to: implement a written respiratory protection program; provide workers with a respirator fit […]

The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that its Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is updating its inspection program that directs agency enforcement resources to establishments with the highest rates of injuries and illnesses. The Site-Specific Targeting (SST) Directive is OSHA’s primary targeting program for non-construction establishments with 20 or more employees. The agency selects establishments based on injury and illness data employers submitted on Form 300A for calendar years 2017-2019. The new directive […]

Look for the Biden administration to put health data privacy and security on the front burner next year. As attorney general for California, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Designate Xavier Becerra developed a track record as a proponent of consumer privacy initiatives. Most recently, his office developed and implemented the regulations for the roll-out of the California Consumer Privacy Act. He also took an active role in new laws addressing privacy and […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained the resources and exposed the vulnerabilities of many hospitals as they confront the most serious global health crisis in over a century. Controlling the spread of this highly contagious virus while treating infected patients and protecting staff is fundamental to the mission of every healthcare facility. Yet infection control remains one of the most challenging aspects of hospital operations. Each year, healthcare-associated infections impact 1.7 million patients at U.S. acute […]

Concern for protecting and safely handling private health information continues to grow, especially with the reliance on electronic transmission. Federal regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) provide guidelines to help ensure that healthcare providers, institutions and their business partners protect patient records. While it’s clear what health entities should do to ensure private health data safety, the role of medical devices in this effort is less well understood. Understanding protected […]