Moving HIPAA Compliance to the Cloud
There are a lot of IT services for healthcare in today’s technology market but many healthcare companies do not realize that there are cloud services available to them to help with automation and centralization of their HIPAA compliance efforts. In fact, some of the more difficult aspects of becoming HIPAA compliant and maintaining HIPAA compliance is tracking all of the documentation, making sure employees are trained periodically, documenting risk assessments, storing compliance documents somewhere that’s easily accessible, and keeping everything up-to-date. Cloud based tools can help address these challenges and here are five important reasons why it is important to keep your employees trained and your HIPAA compliance efforts up-to-date and why it’s more effective when you use cloud based tools.
1. Online HIPAA Compliance Tools Provide the Most Current Information
HIPAA regulations and requirements are changing all the time to meet the needs and address the challenges facing today’s healthcare industry. Most companies still rely on printed documents and related materials which quickly become outdated and require regular updating. To manage this all on paper, in Word, Excel, etc. can be difficult to say the least! Online tools can simplify this process and ensure that employees receive up-to-date information more quickly, learn the material more efficiently and present documentation to auditors, should the organization find itself in the middle of a HIPAA audit.
2. Online HIPAA Compliance Tools Makes HIPAA Compliance Much Easier to Achieve
Creating the appropriate documentation, making sure it is regularly updated, ensuring employees are periodically trained and compliant is a huge burden. Online tools make it much easier to maintain HIPAA compliance as everything is distributed and available online.
3. Cloud Based IT Services for Healthcare Makes Training Easy to Manage
Policies and procedures alone are not enough to maintain compliance. Part of being HIPAA compliant means training employees periodically. Staff will need to read and attest to their understanding of HIPAA policies and procedures at least annually and having an electronic system in place to track this activity and will help ensure the organization has a handle on who has been trained and who still needs to complete the training.
4. Cloud Based IT Services for Healthcare Is Affordable
If your company is like most others, keeping expenses down wherever possible is key. The traditional approach to managing policies and procedures is to simply store a bunch of Word documents somewhere on the network. Employees must be trained on where these documents live, someone must create a means for tracking and maintaining versions of these documents for up to 6 years, a designee must also develop a process and a strategy for knowing when employee training is due, when annual risk assessments are due, centrally store and manage business associate agreements, and much more. Putting these activities into a centralized application or cloud based solution can eliminate much of the employee expense spent on managing these processes. Healthcare IT solutions such as cloud based HIPAA compliance tools can streamline this entire process and ensure that documents can be accessed from anywhere, training is centralized and annual requirements are automatically tracked and alerted.
5. Semi-Annual and Annual HIPAA Requirement Activities Are No Longer a Headache
Healthcare organizations are required to re-train employees periodically, perform annual risk assessments, and review or updated policies and procedures ongoing. The amount of work that goes into properly maintaining this level of compliance, which is required by law, can a big headache and an even bigger expense. Many of the cloud based tools today can be used to help ensure that employees are adequately trained and streamline the overall compliance effort.
Overall, cloud based IT services for healthcare companies can significantly help organizations that must maintain HIPAA compliance. These five reasons illustrate just how easy and affordable it can be to stay compliant when utilizing technology for compliance needs.
If you need help with your compliance efforts or would like to learn more about our Indianapolis IT support services and how we can help reduce your risk and save you valuable time and money on your HIPAA compliance efforts.
