Giva Blog Categories : HIPAA Compliance

Data encryption is available on many of the applications and devices we use daily. In most cases, it is quite easy to toggle "on" as well. It would also seem as if many internet users are beginning to realize the importance of encrypting their data online. A recent article by Chad Skipper of VMware notes "the percentage of encrypted web traffic on the Internet has steadily increased, from around 50% in 2014 to between 80% and 90% today..."

[Read More]

Technology, such as cloud computing, is becoming increasingly attractive in the healthcare management industry. Hospital Chief Information Officers (CIOs), however, now face the difficult task of optimizing new technology while still maintaining the healthcare industry's ethical standards. Here are the top four challenges faced by Hospital CIOs in implementing new technology:

[Read More]

Although it has been a long time coming, results of HIPAA audits conducted in 2016 and 2017 were finally released to the public in December of 2020.

The Scope

In 2016 and 2017, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) performed audits of 166 covered entities and 41 business associates to check on compliance with selected provisions of the HIPAA Rules.

In the report, the Department of Health & Human Services outlines some of its findings, both good and bad, related to policy. This snapshot will look at some of the key findings from the report. Whether positive or negative, neither section is a reflection on all organizations audited.

[Read More]

Working from home has become the norm for many around the world. According to Katherine Guyot and Isabel V. Sawhill at Brookings, up to half of American workers are currently working from home, more than double the fraction who worked from home (at least occasionally) in 2017-18.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a massive telecommuting economy. Every role will have its challenges in adapting to this new normal. However, those in IT faced the greatest initial challenge, and continue to encounter new scenarios regularly. They were in charge of quickly adapting to a new work-from-home arrangement for organization employees. If that wasn't challenging enough, they are now tasked with tackling new issues that arise when multiple people are working in a variety of locations using more than one piece of technology. Are there some tools that can make this situation easier for IT professionals? Absolutely. We will have a look at a few of them in this post

[Read More]

According to the NY Times, many public and private healthcare organizations are overwhelmed by faxes and paper workflows for Covid-19 testing and tracking and are looking for digital solutions to rapidly scale to meet the exponential growth in demand for their services.

[Read More]

Over the past decade, the impact of cloud computing on healthcare has made transitioning to it necessary for healthcare providers. In this technological era, things have become fast-paced, and an on-premises healthcare system will undoubtedly cause the industry to lag. According to the 2019 HIMSS Analytics Cloud Survey, 8 out of 10 healthcare stakeholders consider cloud a strategic priority for the coming year and beyond. Its uses range from data backups and recovery to business functions such as organizational finance and human resources.

However, there can be problems with cloud computing, preventing it from being foolproof. Like many modern technologies, certain drawbacks should be considered before implementation. Once you are aware of these scenarios, share them with your IT leaders, to ensure you are best prepared for any situation when it comes time to switch from old physical equipment to a new healthcare cloud architecture.

[Read More]

Statistics compiled by Techjury reveal that in the last decade, there have been over 2,550 data breaches in the U.S. healthcare industry, with millions of records being affected. If this is not enough to heighten the level of concern of several healthcare companies, the next statistic will. By the end of 2020, security breaches are expected to cost the healthcare industry 6 trillion dollars. This is a significant increase from the $3 trillion figure projected in 2017.

[Read More]

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals have been our most essential resource in terms of battling the pandemic and caring for patients. Walk-in clinics and other healthcare facilities that are not hospitals have had to shut their doors, opting to care for patients through telehealth systems instead. Though we will not know the extent of mass telehealth use and adoption until after economies fully re-open, and the virus is behind us, we can draw safe conclusions to the fact that they have been well widely-used by patients thus far.

[Read More]

At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, many healthcare providers were sent "scrambling" to transition their clinics from in-person to telehealth operations. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) moved quickly to ease regulations for healthcare providers, ridding them of some of the stress associated with meeting certain HIPAA compliance criteria.

[Read More]