Return to site

Why the Security Compliance Assessment Is Important For Every Company?

broken image

A security compliance assessment is an important tool for businesses that must adhere to stringent security standards. The purpose of this assessment is to determine what measures need to be taken to ensure the organization's security practices meet or exceed the requirements set forth in federal, state and local security laws. As well, the personnel who carry out this assessment need to know what types of security threats are greatest, and what methods of protecting against them exist. Health care facilities are required to perform a security compliance assessment annually. For smaller organizations, it is often performed by the facility manager or a highly trained individual on staff. View here for more details about hipaa risk analysis checklist.

When conducting a security compliance assessment, a health care facility often first determines its highest risk threats, based on known threats in the area as well as threats that may not be as widespread but could still create a significant impact on patient safety, as well as the security of the facility. Next, the health provider creates a "bucket list" of all of the top risk factors for the facility. These include known or suspected biological hazards, such as infections, disease, or any substance that can cause serious harm if handled improperly; historic or past exposure to an infectious agent, such as biological agents; exposure to radiation or electrodialysis, chemical agents or radiation, electrical or electronic stimulation or sabotage, and so on. Other factors commonly considered are demographic, including age, gender, medical issues, and location. All factors are taken into consideration in determining the health information that needs to be included in the assessment.

The security compliance assessment process does more than identify the highest risk issues for the facility; it also identifies the highest level of priority for addressing those issues. Methods vary, but sometimes the assessment team will prioritize from highest to lowest issue on the list, depending upon where the threat is located. This prioritization can involve the use of risk management techniques, in which case the highest priority information is removed from the list and sent for further review. At times, local law enforcement is contacted to provide additional information or to clarify the security requirements. You are highly encouraged to work with the HIPAA Security Suite firm which is the most excellent since they deliver the desired results.

The security compliance assessment also involves a review of information systems, especially those that are at the highest levels of the chain of command. Often, the first point of contact for an employee has to do with the information systems itself. If there is a problem, the review team can go in and assess the cause of the problem, what the impact will be on the business, and what the procedures need to be in place to make sure the information systems do not fall prey to security weaknesses. Some of the most common causes of information security weaknesses in the information systems include lack of configuration flexibility, outdated or incorrect information, security vulnerabilities in the application environment, weak passwords and weak access authorization, and poor monitoring of the systems themselves. Some of these problems cannot be prevented, while others are inherent to the way that they work.

In addition to the security compliance assessment, the review team will also determine if there is a need for an information asset manager (IIM), or an operations asset manager (OIM). Typically, the IIM will be given the responsibility of creating a security policy for the organization and implementing the policy within the company. This will typically require the input of all employees. OIM, on the other hand, will be responsible for implementing and maintaining the security system in place. The security Compliance Assessment, as well as the evaluation of the system, are typically performed by the IIM.

The security compliance assessment is one of the most important activities for covered entities. When the security policy is implemented, the covered entity can expect to reduce the liability exposure related to negligence. In addition, when the security system is installed, the business will be able to save money on the expenses of having to add more personnel to handle their increased load, as well as the direct costs related to the implementation and maintenance of the system. Finally, when the system is tested and found to be operating properly, the covered entity can move forward from there. This means that the security compliance assessments are the very foundation for any successful Covered entity security policy, as well as a key factor in any successful enterprise security policy. Get a general overview of the topic here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_health_information.