A security risk assessment tool for hospitals and other HIPAA-covered entities boasts new usability features, thanks to updates from two HHS agencies.
The two agencies — the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and the Office for Civil Rights, which enforces HIPAA privacy regulations — developed the tool to help small- to medium-sized healthcare practices, covered entities and business associates understand their current security posture and identify risks to the secure storage of patient health information.
The tool outlines steps healthcare organizations can take to analyze risks to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of patient data, along with security measures they can implement to protect this information. Updates to the security risk assessment tool include modular workflows and tracking capabilities for organizations to monitor their business associates, assets and overall progress.
The updated tool is available for users on a Windows operating system. The ONC and OCR did not update the iOS iPad version of the tool, however, the previous version is still available on Apple's App Store.
To learn more about the security risk assessment tool, click here.