Healthcare IT Update

Make sure your security compliance program has these 4 policies.

Once your hospital has created an information security management process, you are ready to create the rest of the policies and procedures that will help you comply with HIPAA security regulations.

Jim Sheldon-Dean, director of compliance services with Lewis Creek Systems LLC, told participants in a recent audio conference that your hospital’s policies and procedures must reflect what your real operations are.

“Properly organized, your basic security policies need not be a chaotic jumble of specifications for individual regulations and requirements,” according to Sheldon-Dean. “Where possible, your policies can be organized under four fundamental security policies”:

1) Information Security Management Policy. This policy focuses on three things, said Sheldon-Dean: confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. Note that confidentiality and availability…