HIPAA vs. the Cloud
HIPAA vs. the Cloud
By Chris Witt
If you are involved in HIT, you know all about HIPAA and the responsibility it puts on organizations to protect patient information. In HIPAA’s early days, there were only general guidelines and required outcomes to help direct IT departments in reaching compliance. The fact that most organizations maintained a “closed” system, meaning they had their own data center with very little data being exposed outside of the organization, made compliance relatively simple. Our biggest worry was the tape media being rotated out to our favorite offsite storage facility. Over time, data center strategies have evolved to include collocation and managed services. While this has added some complexity to HIPAA compliance, you still know exactly where your data resides and have a good idea of who could potentially access it from the third-party provider. Now cloud computing has been added to the mix of service options. This adds some interesting HIPAA compliance challenges since absolute end-to-end control of the data is no longer ensured.
Testimonials
WAKE TSI resources have provided a very high level of technical and managerial expertise while saving the Hospital time ...Ed Hemschoot, Director of Information Services, Montgomery Hospital Medical Center
WAKE TSI brings strong technical expertise to supplement our local talent, while providing an objective perspective to o ...Donna M. Manley, IT Sr. Director, Computer Operations, University of Pennsylvania
WAKE TSI provided a high level of industry knowledge and brought a broad range of business and technical skills to the t ...Dennis Smith, Director Technology Systems, Saint Mary’s Duluth Clinic
“WAKE TSI has a wide knowledge of managerial and technical issues that directly impact the day-to-day operations of an ...Ed Bednez, Director Information Technology, Mercy Medical Center
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