Venyu Blog

Over the past four years, more than 250 million customer and patient records containing sensitive personal information have been lost or stolen. New and stricter federal and state legislation is mandating the protection of customer and patient information. With the passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, HITECH affects many aspects of a health practice’s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance and brings with it increased enforcement and more severe penalties for HIPAA violations.

HITECH requires health practitioners to review and modify their existing HIPAA policies and procedures to incorporate the data breach rule’s requirements, and to train staff. HITECH requires that practices take certain actions when protected health information (PHI) has been or may have been accessed, used, or disclosed improperly, whether by negligence, accident, theft, or otherwise.

In this article published by eWeek.com, Knowledge Center contributor Gil Sever explains how to comply with the HITECH Act and HIPAA by implementing comprehensive data protection and data loss prevention solutions.