By Grant Elliott, President and CEO, Ostendio Twitter: @ostendio There’s an inherent risk to doing business, particularly business that touches personal data. For years now, the business community – from healthcare to retail – has focused on the threat prevention aspect of data security. We train employees on compliance, how to recognize PHI and personally identifiable information (PII), and to protect data privacy.…

By Luis Castillo, President & CEO, Ensocare Twitter: @EnsocareCircle No matter who your patient is, there’s no way to avoid a certain degree of risk. If there were, preventing readmissions would be a much easier prospect. But even if we can’t eliminate risk entirely, we can certainly manage it. What we’ve discovered when traveling to hospitals across the country is that,…

By Grant Elliott, President and CEO, Ostendio Twitter: @ostendio One of the key objectives when developing an effective security and compliance management program is to remain interdependent of core systems. While some integrations can offer significant time saving such as Single Sign-On, Ticketing, and Asset Management, typically there are more sophisticated tools available that will perform core audit functions like network monitoring, asset…

By David Holtzman, JD, CIPP/G, VP, Compliance Strategies,  CynergisTek Twitter: @cynergistek Twitter: @HITPrivacy New data reporting on the incidence of malware and ransomware incidents in healthcare find that the majority of physicians are experiencing cyberattacks while many fear they are in the line of fire for future attacks. At the same time, most providers believe their practices are complying with the HIPAA…

By Clyde Hewitt, VP of Security Strategy, CynergisTek Twitter: @cynergistek If one lesson is clear from the constant stream of recent settlements announced by the Office for Civil Rights, it is that covered entities are not implementing risk management plans to reduce risks to protected health information (PHI) to an acceptable and appropriate level. The frequency of seeing the same finding…

William A. Hyman Professor Emeritus, Biomedical Engineering Texas A&M University, w-hyman@tamu.edu Read other articles by this author Readers in this space are well aware of cybersecurity threats, and the need for affirmative security activities to prevent threats from becoming crises. Risk assessment is part of this agenda because you cannot know what it is exactly that you are trying to…

By D’Arcy Gue, VP, Industry Relations, Phoenix Health Systems Twitter: @DarcyGue A record number of hospitals — nearly 80% — have signed IT department outsourcing contracts this year, or are looking to do so. A recent Black Book study says most hospital CFOs and CIOs are collaborating with external service providers to resolve bottom line pressures. They have found that outsourcing provides…

By Lisa English, Hayes Management Consulting Twitter: @HayesManagement Twitter: @lisasoutrunning Yes, the terms “big data” and “analytics” are buzzwords, but they clearly highlight a shift toward data-driven decision-making with a real measurable impact on outcomes in many different industries. Savvy digital marketers now mine your digital breadcrumb trail to offer you more of what you like and attempt to discern…

EHRs: The Promise to Simplify and Streamline By Edward Keiper, President and CEO of Velocity Electronic health records (EHRs) promise to help simplify and streamline many practitioners’ operations. While transitioning to EHRs makes sense for many reasons, including improving patient care and decreasing medical liability, the move to EHRs can also open up some new risk management issues – and…