Conference Offers Security Insights
Focus is on HIPAA Security Rule ComplianceOne of the most significant conferences of the year devoted to healthcare information security issues will be held next week in Washington, and we'll be providing full coverage.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights are jointly sponsoring their fourth annual health information security conference May 10-11. For the first time, the event, "Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance Through HIPAA Security, also will be accessible via a live webcast.
I attended this event last year, and found the content to be timely and insightful. But if you can't make it to this year's show, be sure to check out HealthcareInfoSecurity for complete coverage, including podcast interviews with speakers, news updates and analysis.
This important conference offers strategies for implementing the HIPAA security rule. The rule set federal standards to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of protected health information by requiring HIPAA covered entities and their business associates to implement and maintain administrative, physical and technical safeguards.
The HHS Office for Civil Rights enforces the HIPAA privacy and security rules. NIST, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is a federal physical science research laboratory that's developing a HIPAA Security Rule toolkit, which will be discussed at the conference.
Important Security Topics
Two OCR presentations will provide updates on regulatory activity and HIPAA enforcement. Among other topics to be addressed are:- Insider threats;
- Security issues for health information exchanges, medical devices, mobile devices and cloud computing;
- Breach avoidance strategies and breach "risk of harm assessment" tips; and
- Encryption strategies.
The complete agenda is available on the NIST website.