Network Diagram For Hipaa Compliance

How to meet hipaa documentation requirements.

Network diagram for hipaa compliance. All covered entities except small health plans must have been compliant with the security rule by april 20 2005. Companies that deal with protected health information phi must have physical network and process security measures in place and follow them to ensure hipaa compliance. Let s look at an example in this regulatory compliance act pci dss. A firewall s goal is to filter potentially harmful internet traffic from the internet to protect valuable protected health information phi.

Copies of the rule and related materials. Hipaa network security and wireless lans. The health insurance portability and accountability act hipaa sets the standard for sensitive patient data protection. While hipaa doesn t specifically state providers must provide a data flow diagram to be hipaa compliant the ocr audit protocol does state that auditors must determine if the covered entity has identified all systems that contain.

Expert mike chapple outlines how best to make these changes. A wireless lan local area network is a wireless computer network. To maintain compliance with the pci dss 3 0 requirements enterprises may need to update their network diagrams. Most importantly it s necessary to maintain the trust of your patients.

Small health plans had until april 20 2006 to comply. Requirement 1 1 2 in the pci dss requires that a current network diagram with all connections to cardholder data including any wireless networks be available. Keeping your network secure is critical to avoid hipaa penalties and the hassle of an audit. If you were to ask network architects and engineers about their favorite part of the job i doubt any of them will respond with creating and maintaining network diagrams it s not the most glamorous task yet requirements 1 1 2 and 1 1 3 of the payment card industry data security standard pci dss along with general good security hygiene render it a necessary one.

A definition of hipaa compliance. A hipaa document is more than a policy. Also known as documentation and largely considered a pain by most people this process is absolutely necessary for hipaa compliance. It s proof you care about protecting patient data a massive chunk of your hipaa compliance process should be spent recording what you ve completed.

It also requires that there is a process is in place to keep this diagram current. One component of hipaa network security requirements is properly securing your organization s wireless lan. This network links two or more devices through wireless connection to form a lan within a given area.