May 9
2019
How To Maintain Business Continuity and Compliance During An Emergency
By Paul Banco, CEO, etherFAX.
Healthcare organizations know just how important it is to comply with the HIPAA Privacy Rule to protect sensitive and unstructured data such as patient records, scripts, discharge summaries, medical forms, authorizations, prescriptions, and insurance claims. However, in the event of an emergency, HIPAA compliance is usually the last thing on people’s minds. As a result, hospitals are often granted a HIPAA waiver of up to 72 hours from the time they first implement their disaster protocol. Unfortunately, without a HIPAA waiver, hospitals may face substantial liabilities and penalties for non-compliance.
Even worse, if a hospital’s network is affected by a natural disaster, cyberattack, or system outage, doctors may not be able to access medical records and patients will not receive the proper care. With any type of downtime, some disruption within a hospital is expected to occur. In some cases, these disruptions could be life-threatening. Reports have shown that more than 2,100 patient deaths are linked to hospital data breaches each year. Unfortunately, doctors are often so preoccupied with remediation activities after a breach occurs that patients no longer receive quality care.
Secure exchange network
To prevent tragedies, human errors, and system failures from occurring in the event of an emergency, healthcare organizations must utilize a HIPAA compliant, secure, and trusted network. The ideal secure exchange network will leverage hybrid cloud technology and military-grade encryption to provide 100 percent secure communications at all times. Document and fax transmissions sent via a trusted network will never traverse an external telephone network and, therefore, will remain secure between the remote client site and the secure exchange network at all times.
Disaster recovery
In addition to a secure exchange network, having a complete disaster recovery solution in place is business-critical. A disaster recovery solution works to ensure that organizations never experience downtime while inbound and outbound fax communications remain secure and protected from technical failures due to catastrophic events and natural disasters.