A Report on HIPAA Rules and Healthcare Information Database Security

This report focuses on the critical aspects of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules and their implications for healthcare database security. It begins by defining the scope of HIPAA, emphasizing its application to healthcare providers, health plans, and clearinghouses, and highlighting the importance of protecting patient health information (PHI) in digital formats. The report details the objectives of HIPAA, including ensuring health insurance portability and maintaining the confidentiality and security of patient data. It outlines the penalties for non-compliance, which can range from financial fines to criminal charges, depending on the severity and negligence of the violation. The report further discusses the specific provisions of HIPAA, particularly the administrative simplification and portability provisions, which aim to streamline data management and prevent the loss of healthcare information. It concludes by underscoring the importance of adhering to HIPAA rules to prevent data breaches and maintain the integrity of healthcare information systems, thereby safeguarding patient privacy and ensuring the smooth functioning of healthcare operations.

Running head: HEALTH INFORMATION DATABASE SECURITY
HEALTH INFORMATION DATABASE SECURITY
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1HEALTH INFORMATION DATABASE SECURITY
The HIPAA Rules for the database security is primarily applied to the fields of health
plans, clearing houses of healthcare as well as any provider of healthcare that associates the
transmission of the data regarding the health sector into digital format in accordance to the
HHS Secretary under the adopted standards of HIPAA. The HIPAA rules adheres the security
of the information that are present in the fields of HealthCare (Moore & Frye, 2019). The
Health and Human Services of United States identifies a set of healthcare providers, which
includes the information records in association with the health data, the HIPAA Compliance
is said to be an important fact regarding the stated security of the data as well as the
information associated with the health systems. With the help of this electronic methodology
that is used for the storage of health information the efficiency as well as mobility of the
information is assured in respect to the risk issues that is related to the field of healthcare.
The security compliance rule associated with the Healthcare Information it is depicted
as the privacy regarding the information that is adhered within the healthcare fields of an
organization. The security laws of HIPAA mainly possess two objectives. The first one being
the assurance of the individuals to be capable for maintaining the insurance of health within
the jobs and the second one being the security as well as confidentiality regarding the patient
information as well as data (Chen & Benusa, 2017). This security rules tends to establish a set
of national security standards regarding the protection of the health information in a digital
format.
The violation of the HIPAA rules are quite costly for an organization associated with
the health information systems. The approximate penalties regarding the violation of the non-
compliance based on the negligence level may be about $100 to a maximum of $50,000 for
each violation. In accordance to this, the maximum penalty regarding the data violation
within the environment of the healthcare field is depicted to be a maximum of $1.5 million
per year. Moreover, it can also be analysed that this type of violations can result to criminal

2HEALTH INFORMATION DATABASE SECURITY
charges, which can further lead to jail time. However, the penalty charges regarding the
violation increases with increase in the number of patients being affected and the amount of
negligence that is identified in this sector. The below figure depicts the various amounts
associated with the violation of the HIPAA rules.
(Image: Penalty Charges for violation of HIPAA)
(Source: Berwick & Gaines, 2018)
The specific aspect of the HIPAA rules are associated with primary three objectives in
accordance to the Act. These objectives are stated to be the tax provision, the provision of
administrative simplifications as well as the portability provisions. The administrative
simplification deals with the digitization of the information present within the Health and
Human Services of the US. However, the portability provision aims to restrict the individuals
from the loss of the healthcare data within the health information systems (Edemekong &
Haydel, 2018). The third objective tends to develop easier methods for maintaining the health
insurances within the environment of the healthcare systems.
Thus from the above stated constraints regarding the HIPAA Rules, it can be depicted
that the privacy rules associated with the healthcare information systems. The individual
information regarding the patients as well as the practices of the healthcare in regards to the
medical care is associated within the rules of HIPAA. The potential threats must be adhered
for the smooth data maintenance of the system within an organization. Thus, it is to be
assured that these rules are not violated in any circumstances as this can potentially hamper
the overall health information systems thus leading to certain vulnerabilities within the
system.

3HEALTH INFORMATION DATABASE SECURITY
References
Berwick, D. M., & Gaines, M. E. (2018). How HIPAA harms care, and how to stop it. Jama,
320(3), 229-230.
Chen, J. Q., & Benusa, A. (2017). HIPAA security compliance challenges: The case for small
healthcare providers. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 10(2), 135-
146.
Edemekong, P. F., & Haydel, M. J. (2018). Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA). In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.
Moore, W., & Frye, S. A. (2019). A Review of the HIPAA, Part 1: History, PHI, and Privacy
and Security Rules. Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology, jnmt-119.