The completion of a risk assessment is a requirement of the HIPAA compliance process. The risk assessment identifies the current level of risk to ePHI data in use, at rest or in transmission. Completing this process is one of the most critical steps in identifying controls used to mitigate risks to ePHI – and the effectiveness of the control in reducing the risk to ePHI. This process can also be leveraged in the identification of other requirements for data privacy.
Assessing and implementing the necessary safeguards for HIPAA compliance can be enhanced greatly by an assessment team with extensive technical capability and experience, as well as audit skills. The mix of these skills allows efficient communications with highly technical IT departments while simultaneously providing understandable technical requirements and remediation strategies to management and internal audit departments. This combination of technical expertise and the ability to translate IT terms and processes for various audiences is typically one of our IT audit team’s most complemented attributes.
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“…The Auditwerx team provided us with the necessary guidance, tools and knowledge allowing us to improve the overall process concerning both system’s security and privacy, as well as support to implement better controls that are a hard requirement in our sector…We would highly recommend Auditwerx services to organizations of all sizes and requirement complexities. “
The Auditwerx IT audit team defines the system boundaries and completes an ePHI risk assessment based on the ePHI data flow, and the risks associated with ePHI data at rest in transit and in use. During a HIPAA security assessment, each of the four areas listed below of the HIPAA security standards will be assessed.
The nine standards in this area outline the process infrastructure needs for effective security of electronic Protected Health Information. These standards address:
The approach for assessing administrative safeguards will involve reviewing policies, procedures and processes, and interviewing responsible personnel, with respect to information security responsibility.
The four standards in this area address the physical infrastructure that needs to be in place through:
The physical safeguards assessment occurs by reviews of policies, procedures, and processes; interviews with those personnel responsible for them; and an investigation of the physical facilities. We evaluate whether accessibility to facilities and systems exposes the facility (and the information for which it’s responsible) to unintended information disclosure.
This area outlines the technical infrastructure that needs to be in place for the security of electronic PHI. The four standards in this category address:
Although the standards are somewhat neutral, the Auditwerx HIPAA IT security assessment team considers the various technology components of a computing system and assesses them relative to the applicable standards.
This process consists of reviewing application level software controls, the operating system controls beneath it, the internal network controls to which it is connected, and the controls on external networks that it transmits across.
Security standards address the security aspects of third party business associate contracts.
Our IT audit team focuses on interviewing appropriate business and legal counsel personnel that are involved in developing and drafting business associate contracts and reviewing their content for the security elements that need to be included.
Upon completion of our review, we prepare a report describing identified weaknesses and provide suggestions for technology options to address each weakness. We also provide guidelines for the implementation of a corrective action plan. The Auditwerx IT audit team empowers healthcare and healthcare service organizations by delivering clear and concise security information that looks beyond compliance toward the bigger picture of building strong internal control processes that drive success for your healthcare business.
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