Security Considerations

Running head: SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
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SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
HIPPA: The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted in 1996,
with the aim to protect the use, storage and transmission of patient’s health information. The
primary objectives of the Act are to ensure health insurance portability, reduce frauds and abuse
in the healthcare sectors, ensure privacy and security of the health information and enforce
standards regarding patient’s health information (HHS.gov, 2019). The U.S Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) issued the privacy rule for implementing the requirement of
the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA). It addresses the rule standards
addressing the use and disclosure of health information called “Protected Health Information” by
health organizations subjected to the Privacy rule called covered entities. It also addresses the
standards for protecting patient’s privacy rights and prevent frauds and abuse by misusing
patients health information even by the authorized users. Violation of these standards impose
penalty on the individuals and the heath organizations.
HITECH Act: The HITECH Act supports the protocol followed while reporting data breaches. If
an individual come across a data breach where the information of 500 or more individuals has
been compromised, the HITECH Act needs the entity to provide particular details about the
breach based on the protocols. The HITECH Act also authorized the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS) recipients for using and implementing EHRs to obtain full
reimbursements (Kruse et al., 2017). HITECH regulations have led to the requirement and
urgency of protecting the Protected Health Information (PHI) of the patients. It applies to both
the form of keeping information, paper work as well as electronic records and protecting them
for disclosure, violation of which can impose civil and criminal penalties. Other benefits that the
HIPA Act provides are reimbursements for justified use of electronic medical records (EMRs)
and the right of the patient to obtain copies of EMRs. Healthcare provides, healthcare