HIPAA compliance care is extremely important in healthcare organizations, but IT asset disposition is also an important part of this. IT asset disposition is the process of disposing of equipment with sensitive data and erasing that data from the equipment to avoid breaches. HIPAA compliance and ITAD both work together to ensure that patient data is protected and that there is no potential for breaches, stolen data, or data getting into the wrong hands. Let’s look more into how these two work together and why they are important.
What Exactly is HIPAA?
HIPAA is a healthcare privacy rule that lays out the standards for keeping patient health data secure and private in specific areas. There are specific healthcare organizations and people under the Privacy Act, such as healthcare providers, health plans, and business associates, as well as all of the potential areas within these that may have access to a person’s protected healthcare information.
What Are the HIPAA Rules that are Relevant to ITAD?
There are specific HIPAA rules that are specifically relevant to ITAD, which help to protect patient information even when disposing of the devices that hold the information. IT asset disposition is important when looking at healthcare because it’s essential to destroy and erase patient data that would be left on these devices without data disposition. Let’s look at the rules that correlate with both ITAD and HIPAA.
Data Security and HIPAA Security Rule
The specific HIPAA Security Rule states that healthcare organizations must maintain the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of all personal healthcare information. It also states that there should be secure disposal of all data from healthcare-related devices and software using methods that ensure that data can’t be reconstructed. Data wiping, degausing, and physical destruction are all approved ways of destroying and wiping data from devices.
Requirements on Data Retention
Although HIPAA doesn’t put a limit on how long patient data should be stored for, usually these limits are set by the state. With that said, HIPAA does require that documentation be retained about their privacy and security practices for records.
BAA or Business Associate Agreements
A BAA is required is third-party vendors, like ITAD companies, to handle any personal healthcare information data. These providers must also leave audit trails and documentation that would prove the destruction of data and ultimately leave a trail to showcase their practices.
Safeguards in Administration
Organizations must have a policy for ITAD that covers everything from procedures, vendor selection, and the destruction process. This ensures a traceable situation when it comes to ITAD and the process each organization uses.
What are the Risks of Improper IT Asset Disposition?
Especially in healthcare, there are serious risks that can come about if IT asset disposition isn’t handled properly. Here is a look at some of the risks that are associated with improper IT asset disposition.
Data Breaches
One of the biggest risks that can happen when dealing with improper ITAD is data breaches. Ultimately, this happens because the data on devices or software is not properly disposed of and then accessed by unauthorized people. Data is stored on programs, software, and physical devices that need to be erased and physically destroyed to ensure that they are not able to be resurrected and accessed again. Data breaches have happened in the healthcare industry before, and they will continue to happen if proper ITAD is not practiced under HIPAA regulations.
Legal Consequences
If IT asset disposition is not properly followed, this can result in the business or organization getting into legal trouble and dealing with financial fees because of it. With HIPAA violations, there is a risk of financial repercussions for now following guidelines and doing proper ITAD, which can be devastating to your organization, but it can also ruin your reputation as well. Lawsuits could also be brought up by other organizations or people who have suffered from breaches associated with poor IT asset disposition.
Insufficient Vendor Oversight
If a healthcare organization is using an ITAD vendor, it’s important to keep oversight of their practices and track the way they are doing ITAD. Failure to this this could lead to breaches due to the vendor not upholding appropriate practices for IT asset disposition and leaving patient data vulnerable.
How ITAD Works With HIPAA Compliance
There are many ways that ITAD works with HIPAA compliance to ensure that healthcare organizations are staying compliant and using approved practices for asset disposition. Here is a look at the ways that it is supporting HIPAA.
Certified Data Destruction: ITAD allows for physical destruction and logical erasure to take place, which complies with HIPAA regulations. This ensures that the data and devices are being destroyed in an approved manner. It also allows for supporting documentation that allows for these practices to be tracked and traced for audit purposes.
Third Party Vendor Management: They will help with selecting ITAD vendors that are HIPAA compliant to ensure that they are skilled in working with healthcare organizations. They will also have Business Administration Agreements and regular audits to ensure that all practices are being regulated and upheld in HIPAA compliance.
Documentation: Keeping records and documentation of all ITAD ensures that everything can be tracked and traced to ensure it’s HIPAA compliant, but also to ensure it’s being done correctly if something happens. This also keeps things spin-and-span for regular audits.
ITAD and HIPAA Compliance Working Together
IT asset disposition is an important part of keeping patient data protected, especially in HIPAA compliance. These regulations and rules are put in place to ensure that patient data, some of the most personal data, is protected throughout all healthcare industries. Both HIPAA and ITAD work together to keep data protection in place and set up regular procedures for destroying data and devices that are no longer in use. They are both important to keep patients safe and protected, as breaches in healthcare have happened, and it is important to keep it from happening again. Breaches, lawsuits, and other issues can arise if IT asset disposition is not done properly, which makes the HIPAA and ITAD partnership even more important.
