The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, issued the following bulletin about its enforcement action and why.
Anchorage Community Mental Health Services (ACMHS) has agreed to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR). ACMHS will pay $150,000 and adopt a corrective action plan to correct deficiencies in its HIPAA compliance program. ACMHS is a five-facility, nonprofit organization providing behavioral health care services to children, adults, and families in Anchorage, Alaska.
OCR opened an investigation after receiving notification from ACMHS regarding a breach of unsecured electronic protected health information (ePHI) affecting 2,743 individuals due to malware compromising the security of its information technology resources. OCR’s investigation revealed that ACMHS had adopted sample Security Rule policies and procedures in 2005, but these were not followed. Moreover, the security incident was the direct result of ACMHS failing to identify and address basic risks, such as not regularly updating their IT resources with available patches and running outdated, unsupported software.
“Successful HIPAA compliance requires a common sense approach to
assessing and addressing the risks to ePHI on a regular basis,” said
OCR Director Jocelyn Samuels. “This includes reviewing systems for
unpatched vulnerabilities and unsupported software that can leave
patient information susceptible to malware and other risks.”
ACMHS cooperated with OCR throughout its investigation and has been
responsive to technical assistance provided to date. In addition to
the $150,000 settlement amount, the agreement includes a corrective
action plan and requires ACMHS to report on the state of its
compliance to OCR for a two-year period. The Resolution Agreement
can be found on the OCR website at
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/enforcement/examples/index.html
The HHS Office for Civil Rights and Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology offer a Security Rule
Risk Assessment Tool to assist organizations that handle protected
health information in conducting a regular review of the
administrative, physical and technical safeguards they have in place
to protect the security of the information. The tool is available
at:
http://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/security-risk-assessment
To learn more about non-discrimination and health information
privacy laws, your civil rights
and privacy rights in health care and human service settings, and to
find information on how
to file a complaint, visit us at http://www.HHS.gov/OCR
Follow us on Twitter @HHSOCR.
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