HIPAA Regulatory Alert: Surveys say: HIPAA affects health care IT decisions

HIPAA Regulatory Alert

Surveys say: HIPAA affects health care IT decisions

Some 91% of health care IT decision makers and executives say that HIPAA regulations influence or strongly influence their IT purchasing decisions, according to a survey by electronic access management tool developer Imprivata. Six percent of respondents said HIPAA regulations were the primary drivers in IT purchasing decisions at their organizations, while 3% said the regulations are not considered very much in purchasing decisions.

And according to a survey by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, 54% of health IT professionals said that the HIPAA privacy and security safeguards are strong enough, while 34% said they are not strong enough and 12% said they didn't know.

One-third of respondents said they believe that recent publicity on patient data breaches will slow electronic health record adoption. But 39% said they did not think it would affect adoption of electronic health records, and 13% said they think it will increase such adoption.

Some 40% of respondents said they believe that paper-based medical information is the most susceptible to a security breach, while 37% said they believe that medical information stored in portable devices is the most susceptible to a security breach, and 15% said medical information stored online poses the greatest risk.