Avoiding HIPAA violations is vital to any organization. This is especially true since penalties have continued to increase under the Omnibus Final Rule.
The following 10 steps are suggested to help organizations achieve HIPAA compliance with the final rule:
Saving lives is one of the main purposes of a hospital. In order to fulfill this purpose, a hospital must have clear communication. Healthcare providers work together and are constantly in communication in order to provide the best healthcare possible. However, trying to manage multiple pages can cost both time and money. One hospital found a solution to this problem and it’s saving them in a big way.
The world of communication changes rapidly, and when internal and external paging methods cannot keep up, major operations face a communication crisis. One of the busiest international airports in the world, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, found itself in just such a situation. After discovering what changes were needed, O’Hare International Airport proceeded to look for a solution that would save time, money, and lives.
Loblaw Companies Limited shaped and in many aspects created the modern supermarket. Self-serve style supermarkets were an innovation, and the chain had over 1,000 locations with a new set of headaches to handle. Communication was top priority. That’s where HipLink joined Loblaw Companies Limited and had to make sure Canada’s largest food distributor kept up with the demand.
Medical centers are in the business of saving lives, making patient survival rates heavily dependent on the expediency and efficiency of the medical center’s communication methods. For instance, the ER nurse activates the trauma teams and the doctors and staff need the paging system to keep each other informed of developing situations and emergency cases. Unfortunately, the most common technical solutions for medical communication are outdated and inflexible.
No one needs good communication like first responders. The information delivered by dispatchers can mean the difference between life and death, and a single missed message could mean a lost life. The New Jersey town of Toms River found itself facing a crisis. They dealt with hundreds of callouts a day and the old system simply couldn’t handle that volume of dispatches. It was time for a fresh solution. Lives depended on it.
Not only is Toms River the county seat, but it serves as an evacuation point, vacation destination and has a military base nearby.
Grace Hospital in Ohio is commonly known as a high stress and high fatigue environment. Operating as a not-for-profit hospital, within a hospital, Grace handles patients with the most complex and serious cardiac conditions. While they only staff experienced and dedicated individuals, all four hospitals suffered from alarm fatigue, a struggling budget, and strained communication.
The way healthcare professional’s access data is changing, but security needs to change to meet HIPAA standards. Access to information is critical for physicians and staff as rapid communication and ease of access may determine a patient’s life or death. One of the most popular ways to access patient files is via mobile devices. Unfortunately these devices aren’t always as secure as they should be and the healthcare industry has been the target of staggering amounts of successful cyber attacks over the past few years.
In today’s world, organizations encounter many different types of crises. Natural disasters, workplace violence, technological crises, and financial crises are just some of the unexpected dilemmas that threaten employee safety, company reputation, corporate assets, and financial results.
When developing plans to manage a crisis, it is imperative that a communication strategy be incorporated.
