Importance of Securing Protected Health Information

Government regulations have become stringent by requiring covered entities to notify each individual in case information systems containing unsecured protected health information become breached and accessed by unauthorized individuals. The HITECH Act within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Title XIII, section 13402, specifically identifies different levels of breach notification, such as notifying the "prominent media outlets" and the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in case more than 500 records have been affected. Covered entities must keep a log of each breach of less than 500 records and submit the log yearly to HHS.

Download and read our white paper on deciphering the HITECH Act breach notification rule in Section 13402 of ARRA for our detailed approach on using encryption to protect PHI.

Notifications require detailed information about the breach, including a brief description of what happened, date of the breach, date of discovery of the breach, description of the types of unsecured personal health information involved, steps individuals should take to protect themselves from harm, description of steps being taken to investigate the breach, and contact procedures to learn more about the breach.

Breaches of security and release of unsecured protected health information can hurt your brand, expose your organization to negative media coverage, potentially expose consumers to fraud, and enable the government to levy heavy fines and in some cases, criminal prosecution.

Securing protected health information alleviates concerns about disclosure of protected health information. Using today’s encryption products and technologies provided by Experior Data Security and Encryption can make it easy for you to secure the protected health information that is being stored inside your information systems.

Experior is specifically trained to install and maintain the software and technologies necessary to encrypt sensitive information so that only authorized individuals can access protected health information. It’s not hard. And we can help you. You don’t have to worry about learning curves in technology and software.

Securing the Information

According to the Federal Register Vol 74, No 79, published Monday, April 27th, 2009, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) defines the areas of vulnerability of protected health information to be as follows:

Experior has specific solutions to address all four vulnerabilities identified by the HHS . We have expertise in implementing software and processes to ensure that your organization meets and/or exceeds government requirements for securing protected health information. We have done all the research on best of breed technologies to help your organization implement encryption technology quickly and cost effectively.