Nationwide Awareness Initiatives: Cyber Security and Health IT

It appears our government is stepping up their game when it comes to national awareness of IT issues. The White House recognizes October as National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) to raise awareness of online safety and security issues. This initiative comes at a time when the government has been targeted for outdated data security practices by a number of hacker incidents. According to a recent Infoweek article, the Government Accountability Office released a report citing security incidents rising by more than 650% in the last five years.

A few cyber security tips from Microsoft in celebration of NCSAM:

• Use automatic updating for all software to keep it up-to-date
• Use antivirus and antispyware software
• Never turn off your firewall (an important tip for organizations that need to be PCI or HIPAA compliant)
• Never email sensitive information (even if encrypted)
• Create strong passwords and diverse passwords for different sites and accounts

Continuing in the IT awareness theme, National Health IT Week was September 12-16, aiming to educate the healthcare industry on the importance of adopting ‘meaningful use’ electronic health record systems to improve patient care. Other health IT initiatives include the EHR (electronic health records) stimulus funding program rewarding organizations that went paperless and recognized HIPAA compliance standards.

Benefits of Health IT and HIPAA standards enforced by HITECH:

• Improves quality of healthcare delivery – faster and more accurate data access
• Increases patient safety
• Decreases medical and human errors

If you need more details about what a secure HIPAA hosting solution includes or what a HIPAA compliant data center can provide for your organization, contact us today.