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Document Management’s Role in HIPAA. from. Westbrook Technologies. Westbrook Technologies and Healthcare – Just What the Doctor Ordered.
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Document Management’sRole in HIPAA from Westbrook Technologies
Westbrook Technologies and Healthcare – Just What theDoctor Ordered Westbrook Technologies’ document management products streamline processing, allow for collaboration and provide security for documents throughout healthcare entities such as doctor’s offices, clinics, HMOs, hospitals and pharmacies.
What is HIPAA? Beginning April 2003, those in the healthcare field will be forced to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal guideline that aims to ensure patient information and records are protected and maintain their integrity.
HIPAA Will: • Protect rights of consumers by providing access to and control of health information. • Reduce medical administration costs. • Improve efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery. • Create a national framework for health privacy protection.
HIPAA Defines Regulations For: • Electronic healthcare transactions. • Health information privacy. • Security requirements. • Unique identification for providers. • Unique identification for health plans. • Enforcement procedures.
The Truth About HIPAA: Consultants, technology firms, and document management companies are claiming that certain software is ‘HIPAA-compliant.’ This is an attempt to capitalize on the pressure healthcare executives are facing under looming government deadlines. The fact is there is no committee or organization under HIPAA that is responsible for software certification.
The Truth About HIPAA: HIPAA is a broad and encompassing initiative that ensures healthcare facilities address everything from payment transmittals to having a dedicated employee as the “HIPAA Compliance Officer.” There are aspects of HIPAA that have no connection whatsoever to a document management initiative.
How Westbrook Technologies Works with HIPAA Westbrook Technologies offers integrated solutions for processing electronic and paper-based healthcare claims. What follows are a few of the ways Westbrook Technologies’ product suite can help organizations meet their objective of becoming HIPAA compliant.
First: Security • Fortis’ security model is of the highest integrity. • Users must be authenticated before access is permitted. • Access can be restricted at different levels, giving only authorized people access to confidential documents within a patient's folder. • This adheres to HIPAA rules that require information be protected from improper access or alteration.
Second: Audit Trail • Fortisusers have the ability to track every aspect of the patient record. They can: • Track who viewed a document and when they viewed it. • Determine who e-mailed, who printed, and who faxed a patient record. • See when patient information was scanned into the system, who scanned it, who viewed it after it was scanned, etc. • Audit Trail helps enforce rules that state users must account for each disclosure of a patient record.
Third: Fortis Office This optionallows correspondence and forms created in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook to be forwarded into patient records stored in Fortis. Data that is not paper based can be effortlessly included inside the same protected repository as all other documents, helping to ensure that patient information remains in a secure location.
Fourth: Electronic Payment Standardization HIPAA’s requirements call for electronic payment standardization. Fortis ERM, our Electronic Report Management module, allows Fortis to act as a secure repository for mainframe-generated reports.
What Does This All Mean to Healthcare Organizations? Regardless of where patient information originates: scanned from hard copy, faxed, e-mailed, PC-based or mainframe-based, Westbrook Technologies provides a secure repository that can track all aspects of patient information.
ROI: • Reduce costs associated with copying and retrieving health information. • Ensure aspects of system are compliant. • Health information is more tightly controlled, while at the same time more accessible to those who need it. • Data is protected.
