Compliance has become more complex to navigate as healthcare providers rely on evolving technologies to distribute and store data. Furthermore, having to comply with security requirements from state and federal agencies can be a challenging undertaking, one that drains significant strength and labor. After all, healthcare providers, along with their IT vendors, should demonstrate that they are a reliable resource. This is why it is essential for medical providers to have a system that is not only clear, but is also efficient and secure. HITRUST certification empowers healthcare providers to achieve just that.
Challenges with HIPAA
Although compliance is essential in healthcare, there is sufficient obscurity in the HIPAA regulation, which can be misinterpreted. Whether it is the need for review management, log collection, or data security, the guidelines stated in HIPAA are not specific enough to help direct providers in the right path and guarantee them complete data protection.
The challenge that comes with following HIPAA protocols is defining a vendor that is truly compliant with the standards. This is difficult because some vendors claim industry-grade security, but may not meet the level of anticipated diligence. The need for consistent, actionable, and standardized computing becomes more evident, and this is where HITRUST can help.
What is HITRUST?
Healthcare and IT experts crafted HITRUST (Health Information Trust Alliance) to offer organizations a structured approach to managing security requirements that HIPAA overlooks. HITRUST also streamlines the often cumbersome and unstable process of healthcare compliance reporting. It serves as a reliable benchmark for healthcare companies to evaluate and enhance their compliance efforts, ensuring strong security for their clients. It is important to note that adopting HITRUST doesn’t replace HIPAA. Rather it supplements it with a more comprehensive and progressive framework. Combining standards from HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FTC, COBIT, HITECH, NIST, and others, HITRUST has emerged as the leading compliance framework in healthcare.
Benefits of HITRUST Certification
In a constantly changing landscape of healthcare security, a HITRUST CSF certification is essential in addressing an abundance of local, national, and global regulatory concerns and guidelines. Being CSF-certified offers the following benefits:
1. Setting Clear Standards
Effectively setting clear standards is crucial in managing information and creating a culture of accountability among professionals. Achieving HITRUST CSF certification enables organizations to meet the requirements of building a top-tier security defense. This mitigates the need for resources to continuously react to evolving security audits. Moreover, HITRUST auditors provide you with multiple reports that can address several regulatory and legislative frameworks like NIST, PCI-DSS, or HIPAA.
HITRUST CSF also reduces the complexity and associated costs related to the adoption of a specific set of assessment processes and security objectives. Best of all, it harmonizes with multiple regulations and standards, making it the summit of verified trust.
2. Scalable Cybersecurity
Compared to other frameworks, HITRUST CSF offers a set of controls that organizations can easily scale using a risk-based approach to meet their present and future needs. Having a scalable system enables organizations to be more competitive and efficient in delivering quality services to their customers.
Always bear in mind that market demands are never static. They continue to evolve as the needs and interests of people change and as the supply of resources fluctuate. To stay relevant in the competitive world of business, you have to adapt and fill the needs of people. Thus, the framework goes through quarterly updates and annual audit changes. These regular updates guarantee that healthcare companies are using the system that maximizes their security. It also prepares them for new regulations and security threats as they arise.
3. Strengthening Brand Reputation
Perhaps the most significant advantage of obtaining a HITRUST CSF certification is to strengthen brand reputation. Hacks occur every 39 seconds, thus having a platform that can provide security allows an organization to create a foundation for better healthcare services. HITRUST allows healthcare professionals to spend more time focusing on patient care rather than worrying about compliance.
On top of everything else, HITRUST CSF also cross-references the security controls of organizations to the desired standards and regulations. This is particularly valuable for organizations that encompass a large number of stakeholders with diverse reporting requirements.
Obtaining a HITRUST CSF Certification
Achieving HITRUST CSF Certification is challenging due to its more rigorous set of requirements when compared to other frameworks and standards. A customary HITRUST validated assessment typically includes over 400 control requirements, along with five distinct maturity evaluation levels. In essence, an assessor must review and scrutinize between 2,000 and 25,000 pieces of documentation to validate an assessment.
While the journey to being CSF certified initially begins at submitting a validated assessment, HITRUST recommends organizations to conduct a readiness assessment. In most cases, a readiness assessment is executed internally by a third-party. This helps businesses become familiar with CSF requirements and identifies control gaps that they should discuss before moving forward.
What is a Readiness Assessment?
In a readiness assessment, a third-party like RSI Security, will evaluate your compliance against five maturity levels: process, procedure, implementation, measure, and managed. Controls are subsequently classified into 19 distinctive assessment domains. This is because HITRUST CSF is a single-source regulatory and compliance framework that is composed of EU GDPR rules, HITECH, ISO 27001, and a wide range of other industry systems as well as state-specific regulations.
Likewise, it is also in the HITRUST audit checklist that organizations have a readiness assessment performed by a certified CSF assessor. This assessor will eventually perform the validated assessment as well. Through this process, businesses can gain the assessor’s perspective on identified gaps, facilitating discussions on how to address them effectively.
Normally, the assessment stage can last between two to eight weeks. This depends on the complexity of the scoped environment, business, and the amount of information. Additionally, organizations must have a minimum rating of 62% or greater in each maturity level to receive a HITRUST certification.
What Happens After the Assessment?
During the review period, HITRUST produces a report that outlines your organization’s compliance and rating across the specified maturity levels. After completing and approving a validated assessment, the organization must pay a certification fee, send remedial action plans, and allow HITRUST to evaluate the results.
The HITRUST certification letter will only be issued to the business once the evaluation finds no significant issues beyond those recognized in the validated assessment. The HITRUST certification is valid for two years. This is only given knowing that the organization will continue to monitor the operation of controls throughout the two years.
Businesses should avoid making significant changes to practices and security policies to maintain the certification. Additionally, organizations should ensure that their systems and facilities meet the required standards for the certification to be considered valid.
Why become HITRUST CSF Certified?
Although HITRUST compliance is not always needed, businesses should consider the opportunity it provides. HITRUST enables organizations to centralize compliance and security as a component of the implementation process. Digital healthcare is continuously growing, making it more vulnerable to cyberattacks. While cyber threats are certainly inescapable, being HITRUST compliant ensures that you are on top of changing hacker strategies. And as a result, you are able to fend off unauthorized access to classified material.
A HITRUST CSF certification can also help your brand stand out from the sea of competitors. It demonstrates that your company is strong, enthusiastic, and committed to providing quality healthcare and compliance.
Building trust with a patient often takes years or even decades, so it makes sense to work with partners like RSI Security who take data protection as seriously as you do.
Download Our HITRUST Compliance Checklist
Assess where your organization currently stands with being HITRUST compliant by completing this checklist. Upon filling out this brief form you will receive the checklist via email.
