Steps to Improve HIPAA Compliance at Home

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance for employees working remotely depends on a sound IT infrastructure. Raghunath Thummisi, Global Cybersecurity Market Strategist at Radware in Mahwah, NJ, offers these suggestions:

• Ensure all configurations and setup of remote equipment, software, and hardware accessing the organization’s systems are performed by the IT team in a structured way. This includes setting up firewalls, antivirus software, and VPN access.
• Set up all remote employees with correct access and privilege levels based on their roles and responsibilities.
• Ensure employees’ home routers are encrypted and the default passwords are changed.
• Mandate end-to-end encryption and protection of remote devices, home network, and applications, including secure transmission of patient records.
• Enforce strict acceptable usage policies and confidentiality of remote devices.
• Mandate remote employees to prevent unauthorized access at home.
• Require remote employees to follow a data confidentiality and privacy policy for document management of physical and digital documents.
• Periodically audit remote employees to ensure adherence to remote access policies.

SOURCE

• Raghunath Thummisi, Global Cybersecurity Market Strategist, Radware, Mahwah, NJ. Phone: (201) 512-9771.