Health Industry Coalition Unveils Health IT Security Framework

From Tuesday, March 3rd iHealthBeat

For those of you who are concerned that increased use of EHRs will lead to decreased security and privacy of patient information ,this should be good news to you.

Health Industry Coalition Unveils Health IT Security Framework
A group of more than 55 health care stakeholders unveiled a Common Security Framework to help companies comply with privacy and security standards related to electronic health records. The group's plan establishes guidelines for addressing the security and regulatory aspects of exchanging electronic health data. San Francisco Business Times, Reuters.

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Health Industry Coalition Unveils Health IT Security Framework

On Monday, the Health Information Trust Alliance, a coalition of more than 55 health care companies and technology vendors, released a new framework designed to help companies comply with federal and other electronic health record privacy and security standards, the San Francisco Business Times reports.

Prompted by concerns that the health care industry needed to make significant improvements in the security and privacy of health care data, the HITRUST initiative has been in the works for about two years (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 3/2).

Called the Common Security Framework, the group's plan establishes guidelines for addressing the security and regulatory aspects of exchanging electronic health data (Kelly, Reuters, 3/2).

The framework also aims to help industry stakeholders improve their internal IT security systems.

According to the Business Times, it is unclear how quickly the group's approach will be adopted and how it will be integrated with the existing standards, regulations and auditing programs (San Francisco Business Times, 3/2).

The alliance includes health care providers, insurers, pharmacies, biotechnology firms and device manufacturers, such as:

Cisco Systems;
CVS Caremark;
Humana;
Johnson & Johnson (Reuters, 3/2);
Kaiser Permanente; and
McKesson (San Francisco Business Times, 3/2).