The System Development Life Cycle

During SDLC phase one, the initiation phase, “the need for a system is expressed and the purpose of the system is documented” (NIST, 2008). Some of the expected outcomes from this phase would be a project plan and schedule; system performance specifications outlining the operational requirements, system design documents, and a document that defines roles and responsibilities. The corresponding RMF step, security categorization, establishes the foundation for security standardization among information systems and provides a vital step towards integrating security into the information system (NIST, 2008). During this step, the type(s) of information processed by the information system are identified and the information system is categorized to determine the level of protection requirements to put in place. Some of the expected outputs of this step include a security project plan and schedule, documented system boundary, the system categorization, and the security roles and responsibilities. These two process steps are very similar except the focus of RMF is on information security related functions. In some cases, SDLC produces the expected outputs that RMF requires, and the security professionals only require a copy of the documentation for their records. For example, the system design document often depicts the system boundary. The reason this step is so critical is that it

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

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

New security measures would take place to reduce the risk of member private information from being a breach and appropriate sanctions against workforce members who fail to comply with security policies and procedures. Kaiser Permanente information system will be regulated and reviewed. then security responsibility would be assigned to an individual for overseeing development of new security policies and procedures. Supervision who has access to ePHI would be enforced. Training and awareness of HIPAA law will be a standard required that member of the workforce will have to take to ensure further employment with the organization. Continuous examination of technical and nontechnical in response to changes that may affect the security ePHI of Kaiser Permanente be evaluated every six

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

This paper is intended to summarize the objectives of HIPAA in safeguarding the privacy of individual’s private health information from unauthorized access in general and security requirements for HIPAA compliance in particular. The HIPAA privacy rule requires covered entities to protect patient’s health records and any other identifiable health information by using appropriate safeguard to protect privacy. The HIPAA security rule requires that covered entities implement a security technology to safeguard the integrity, confidentiality and availability of individual’s electronic private health information while exercising quality service for patients. Healthcare providers have shifted towards the use of electronic health records

Privacy and security to assure that individuals trust the exchange of their healthcare information into a system that protects their information as it is shared between health care entities. These security measures are being constructed on the federal and state levels to assure the safe transmission of patient’s healthcare information and that the public’s trust is established in these security

However, designing and developing such a medical system must be build and deployed keeping a few things in mind such a privacy, confidentiality, system availability and security. By ensuring

The technical recommendation for addressing the security requirements in ABC Healthcare network needs a set of controls which include, access controls, audit controls and integrity controls. Access and audit controls ensure how healthcare professionals and other employees access sensitive data such as Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI), and the process of authentication. Personnel are often targets of social engineering attacks that potentially could result to security breaches and attacks; therefore, it is essential to provide adequate security awareness training to all new hires, as well as refresher training to current employees on a yearly basis. Ensuring personnel have an understanding of sensitive information, common security risks, and basic steps to prevent security breaches can develop habits that would make them less susceptible to social engineering attacks.

In addition to legal support, standards have been implemented to assist with health information security. For instance, the ISO/IEC 27002 is a standard that was created in the mid 1990’s to provide theory and recommended techniques for dealing with information security. Furthermore, the ISO 27799 supplements the ISO/IEC 27002 by providing more detailed guidance that has been customized for the healthcare industry. According to Fernández-Alemán, Señor, Lozoya, & Toval, the ISO 27799 standard “provides clear, concise and healthcare-specific guidance on the selection and implementation of security controls for the protection of health information, and is adaptable to the wide range of sizes, locations, and service delivery models found in healthcare.” Thus, it would appear that

In today’s society, medical records becomes a huge issue. In many organizations such as healthcare, patient confidentiality becomes a high concern. Having internet health services, creates a challenge for compliance in healthcare. Providers have treated application security and infrastructure security independently until now. Access must be secured for clinical applications to alleviate the concern from providers in healthcare. Therefore, IT infrastructure must be protected from hackers, misusing information as well as thieves. (FairWarning, n.d.)

In light of available security measures and their widespread acceptance within the information security community, there is no excuse for healthcare organizations to fail in fulfilling their duty to protect personal patient information. Guaranteeing the confidentiality and privacy of data in healthcare information is crucial in safeguarding the data of patients as there should be a legal responsibility to protect medical records from unauthorized access.

Information security and privacy is occupying a most important role in the healthcare territory in order to deliver protected information process to their patients (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). As healthcare department is the organization with vast data and essential information the hospitals has to keep a useful information security technique in their enterprise process (Mishra et al., 2011). Information security is one such phase in the healthcare sphere which is extremely problematic to describe and evaluate even to the individuals who are working on the process. In the healthcare organization, information is of many types which required for the work and even the security is a main control for almost all the practices which are transmitted out in the healthcare field (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). Hospitals, in specific, have been instructed to create a new set of security specialists to protect healthcare data tools techniques upon which exists may rely. Healthcare data is very critical for patients because it is very confidential records. If a medical apparatus is filled with a computer virus it can even exemplify a possibility to patients ' lives. Hence, hospitals should design alertness of the risk, to defend against concerns to healthcare databanks and be concerned about the high risk of infected computers or medical tools being connected to their networks (Mishra et al., 2011).

Designing a working plan for securing the organization s information assets begins by creating or validating an existing security blueprint for the implementation of needed security controls to protect the information assets.  A framework is the outline from which a more detailed blueprint evolves.  The blueprint is the basis for the design, selection, and implementation of all subsequent security policies, education and training programs, and technologies.  The blueprint provides scaleable, upgradeable, and comprehensive security for the coming years.  The blueprint is used to plan the tasks to be accomplished and the order in which