Security and As-is Question Set

The primary purpose of Health Body Wellness Center (HBWC) is to uphold improvements in the quality and value of healthcare grants. The Office of Grants Giveaway (OGG) distributes and manages grant funding with a Small Hospital Grant Tracking System (SHGTS) stored in an Access database. We Test Everything (WTE) was hired to conduct a risk assessment of the SHGTS, and a baseline of the existing environment was established as well as documented vulnerabilities. The scope of the Information Security Management System (ISMS) is limited to the SHGTS, the host general support system (GSS), and the Remote Access Server (RAS).

Modern communications capabilities open up a world of possibilities for all types of medical practices to develop deeper connections with their patients and to manage health care remotely. The HIPAA Privacy Rule gives patients the right to obtain copies of their medical records, treatments and protected health information or PHI. These requirements go further if medical providers want to receive reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid -- patients must be able to access their records online, download copies and transmit the information to third-party providers. Most medical practices are finding it necessary to develop patient portals where patients and physicians can interact, share information and perform important functions such as practices billing patients and accepting payments online. HIPAA 's rules require that these patient portals have strong security and privacy protections to prevent unauthorized access of these confidential PHI records.

Hospitals have put in place widespread security and privacy measures to protect patient health information. However, there are still errors being made in data security through the IT standpoint. Some of these errors or issues include:

In a large service-related Healthcare organization with the staff to patient ratio approximately 1:100, there is a greater threat by technology of breaching security records. Medical records include information about ones physical and mental being. They may contain information about ones relationship with family members, sexual behavior, drug or alcohol problems and HIV status ( Burke & Weill, 2005). The confidentiality is threatened when the medical records information is put on the Internet, by use of telemedicine, and by the use of e-mail by healthcare workers. Although this is the fastest way to store and share

Another downfall or disadvantage of using this software is the concerns of client’s security. Most individuals think a disadvantage would be the security vulnerability for the client’s medical records. The ultimate concern is that hackers are still out there and may steal client’s personal information and possible compromise their identity. It does not matter how many password encryptions, security features added, and firewalls are put up, hackers can get in there. However, there are also companies that specialize in security measures for the maintenance of Electronic Health Records software.

Under the HIPAA Security Rule, health care providers are required to conduct an accurate and thorough analysis of the potential risks and vulnerabilities. Protecting the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy of data in health care is very important. For a risk analysis, health care providers would prioritize risks based on the severity of the impact that it would cause their patients and practices (Security Risk Analysis TipSheet, 2014). In addition, identifying the potential threats to patient privacy and security (Security Risk Analysis TipSheet, 2014). A risk analysis process would include determining the likelihood and impact of potential risk to electronic protected health information, implementing security measures to

Data privacy is vital to healthcare organizations and the health information they store. Johns (YEAR) defines data security as “a collection of protection measures and practices that safeguard data, computers, and associated resources from undesired occurrences and exposures” (p. 207). To protect their information, organizations must develop a data security program to meet the needs of Health Information Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA), stakeholders, and the business’s needs. Additionally following the guidelines set by HIPAA is key to being in compliance with the law. These programs differ depending on the organizations that are required to establish them, however, they all follow the same steps in creating and implementing this program

According to Whitman and Mattord (2010), The ISO 27000 series is one of the most widely referenced security models. Referencing ISO/IEC 27002 (17799:2005), the major process steps include: risk assessment and treatment, security policy, organization of information security, asset management, human resources security, physical and environmental security, communications and operations management, access control, information systems acquisition, development, and maintenance, information security incident management, business continuity management, and compliance

Health Information Exchange is a fairly new concept in the healthcare field. There were several precursors to HIE that were in use throughout the United States, these include Community Health Management Information Systems, Community Health Information Networks, and Regional Health Information Organizations. There are several data factors that make up a Health Information Exchange, the Electronic Health Record and the Personal Health Record. One of the biggest concerns about medical information is keeping it safeguarded, and there are three ways to accomplish this, with administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Finally, there are a number of benefits to having a secure Health Information Exchange. The benefits include; accessibility, wherein multiple users can access the data at the same time, communication, wherein providers can share information quickly with no corruption of critical data, and better healthcare management. By building disease and chronic care registries, symptoms, treatment, and outcomes are tracked. The Health Information Exchange also enables contagious disease and bioterrorism tracking, but reporting symptoms to the CDC daily.

Medical errors can be a significant threat to the the health of Americans and can lead to the downfall of a health care system. These errors can be anything from a data entry error or simply a patient’s information getting into the wrong hands. The importance of a health care system is to provide extraordinary care all while protecting the rights and information of their patient. A new generation of federal efforts emerged in order to address these concerns, in part through the effective use of information technology. Thus, the Health Information Exchange was born. The Health Information Exchange (HIE) is a system that allows health care information to be appropriately and securely shared electronically across organizations within a region,

The safeguard of patient health information and consumer information is effectively and sufficiently guarded is the upmost importance to any organization. Information security is important because it the law. Any deficiency of an effective information security program can be costly to an organization and be detrimental to patients and consumers. Organizations must be aware of the growing opportunities for breaches in security as technology is advancing is making the collection, maintenance, and dissemination of protected health information easier (Sayles, 2013). The following two security breaches will identify threats, and provide a security plan for the organization.

Currently, discovery efforts are underway involving both CHS and MedHost resources. To date, Advance Security has been technically installed and tested in two site; it has been proven that the Advance Security application can run in the CHS “environment” – no know issues in clinical and business workflows. In addition, MH is putting together all technical and implementation tasks associated with installing Advance Security in “new” CHS facilities and Legacy Sites.

Idaho State University (ISU) controlled and managed the security for twenty-nine outpatient clinics. Thus, one would expect that all the health information would be protected. Four to eight of these facilities were required to follow HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules. However, they failed to do this efficiently especially at the ISU’s Pocatello Family Medicine Clinic (HHS.gov, 2013a). As a result, ISU reported a breach to their system to the U.S. Department of Health Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) on August 9, 2011 stating that 17,500 ePHI patients’ records were not safeguarded for about ten months (HHS.gov, 2013a; HHS.gov, 2013b). This resulted because ISU neglected to enable firewall protections for their servers (HHS.gov, 2013a). Consequently, HHS performed an investigation and contacted ISU about its findings on November 22, 2011 alerting them of their neglect on several factors. Firstly, from April 1, 2007 to November 26, 2012, ISU ignored to perform correct protocol in their security management process. ISU failed to execute a risk analysis to ascertain vulnerabilities pertaining to the confidentiality of ePHI records (HHS.gov, 2013b). Secondly, during this same time frame, ISU disregarded to employ proper and ample security methods to diminish risks and susceptibilities to their system (HHS.gov, 2013b). Finally, between the timeframe of April 1, 2007 to June 6, 2012, ISU forsook to apply continuous monitoring procedures that would constantly detect

To need security management we first have to identify a threat because without a threat we can’t fully understand or comprehend the task at hand, Management is how we go about implementing our principals of management that we have learned throughout our careers and personal approaches to the systems that have been proven over the years in successes and

The systems approach to problem solving is used to analyze and identify mediatory provisions, see figure 2, Appendix D, Systems Approach to Problem Solving. Loss suffered in the Societe Generale Bank security breach was substantial because the perpetrator knew where to look to acquire access to financial information and circumvent existing security measures. This defined fraudulent behavior and solidified criteria for productive countermeasures. Prevention and risk management must be addressed by establishing policies and procedures and enforced by management at all levels. In accordance with Societe Generale Bank security policy these recommendations are proposed