Preparing for HIPAA: Privacy and Security Issues to be Considered

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is imposing privacy and security regulations on health plans, health care clearinghouses, and health care providers. Although not explicitly stated, this also includes medical schools and research institutions. For medical schools, HIPAA's challenges are different from those of other healthcare organizations due to multiple roles of faculty as educator, researcher and clinician. Because so many people need access to different portions of patient health information (PHI), administration of privacy and security is difficult. Therefore, the privacy and security regulations focus on achieving data integrity, confidentiality, and availability through four main areas: administrative policies, physical safeguards, technical security services and technical security mechanisms.