On Track With HIPAA Implementation- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
On Track With HIPAA Implementation- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
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May 11, 2001
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In This Issue:
A Night of Awards and Applause
On Track With HIPAA Implementation
Why Wait?
Partners Town Meeting
Who’s news
Pike Notes
And the Winners Are...
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BWH is moving forward to comply with the regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which went into effect on April 14. The hospital plans to complete all steps over a two-year implementation period, as permitted in the detailed regulations. The main focus of HIPAA is administrative simplification. The act was created to encourage organizational, process and technology change in order to reduce health care costs. The regulations standardize information exchanges and establish standards for the privacy and security of protected health information. There are three main components to HIPAA—transactions and code sets and unique identifiers, privacy and security. HIPAA is being tackled at BWH as a catalyst for change and an opportunity to increase efficiency in certain areas. The HIPAA Task Force leaders will be focusing on areas of change that make good business sense, in addition to leveraging existing structures or efforts already in place and organizing initiatives according to the HIPAA regulations. HIPAA is a comprehensive effort requiring ongoing improvements in operations to assure continuous compliance. Security and privacy regulations will be of particular importance and relevance to most BWH employees. Some of the security initiatives to be launched will include the development of an information security structure; general, network and application security policies; guidelines for “chain of trust” agreements with covered business partners; a security and awareness training program; a business impact analysis; and more. HIPAA’s privacy regulations also will be added to BWH's privacy and confidentiality standards, with increased awareness and enforcement of current policy. Patient information is accessed on a “need to know” basis only and retrieving patient information for reasons that are not directly job-related is off limits. Devices such as password-protected computer screen savers help keep patients’ files strictly confidential. In the coming months, BWH Bulletin will publish additional stories on BWH’s efforts to comply with HIPAA's standards. All staff and employees with questions about regulations are encouraged to contact HIPAA Task Force members Kathleen Gordon, director, Patient and Family Relations; Cheryl Locke, vice-president, Human Resources; Karen Nelson, director, Regulatory Compliance; Dean Romano, IS director, BWPO; Jackie Raymond, director, Health Information Services; and Sue Schade, chief information officer, IS. More information on HIPAA can be found on the official Health and Human Services web site at
http://aspe.hhs.gov/admnsimp/