By SANDRA GITTLEN

HIPAA's ripple effect

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Network World, 01/23/02

I talked to an internal auditor at a major health care company last week. I called him to talk about performance and availability management tools - not a real controversial subject on the surface. However, he agreed to speak to me on the basis of anonymity and answered all my questions in barely audible, hushed tones.

The reason for his veil of secrecy was simple: He had started to review the new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidelines and realized that his company was far from up to spec.

The HIPAA rules are privacy regulations that outline how the healthcare industry and its business partners must protect patient data. There was criticism last year that what the government was suggesting in the way of accountability for transactions and the integrity of patient data would be too costly.

There was uproar within the health care industry and the internal auditor's company was just as reluctant to comply as its colleagues. At the heart of the matter was his IT department's reluctance to install performance and monitoring tools that could track who accesses patient records and secure the path of claim payments.

He says executives at the company were handed excuses that ranged from not having enough resources to a lack of mature tools. In the end, the company, sensing it was under the gun, essentially signed a blank check and ordered a serious look at what tools are on the market.

Meanwhile, the internal auditor I spoke with is scouring the HIPAA documents to make sure that the company has covered its bases as far as compliance. He recommended others do the same. Here are some resources that can help you better understand HIPAA and its requirements:

Download the HIPAA rules from the Health and Human Services Web site

HIPAA Privacy Rule Guidelines, The Internet Law Journal, Sept. 5, 2001. This article gives a concise history of the rules and their establishment.

HIPAA library, BenefitsNext Web site. This site offers recent articles on how companies are dealing with the HIPPA rules and what snags they are encountering.

To your health, revisited, Network World VPN newsletter, 09/24/01. Senior Editor Tim Greene looks at how VPNs are affected by the HIPPA ruling. Also includes a comprehensive list of resources.

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Gittlen is Events Editor at Network World.
You can e-mail her at sgittlen@nww.com.