Recent HIPAA and HITECH mandates data security within healthcare organizations

ATLANTA, March 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Stonebranch, the industry leader in Managed File Transfer software for businesses and Job Scheduling technology, announced today the publication of its most recent white paper, "Achieving Safe Harbor: What the HITECH Act Means for U.S. Healthcare Organizations' Communications and Business Processes." The paper focuses on recent healthcare regulations and how healthcare organizations (HCOs), related covered entities (CE) and business associates (BA) can secure personal health information (PHI) from infrastructure to people.

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In particular, the white paper examines how the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health ACT (HITECH) provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) address and define how to securely communicate both PHI both inside and outside of the HCO network. The HITECH act stipulates that PHI must be encrypted at rest and while in transit to meet security requirements. Moreover, the HIPAA Security Rule states that encryption must comply with three types of safeguards: administrative, physical and technical.

The whitepaper also addresses historical approaches to securing PHI, including FTP, SFTP and VPNs, and the inadequate functionality of these solutions. Using a wide variety of unsecure file transfer products ultimately leads to limited platform support, lack of data security, compliance and auditing capabilities.

Wolfgang Bothe, CEO of Stonebranch, said, "With the growing number of healthcare regulations, HCOs must protect their information and communications with an integrated secure file transfer strategy. It is important to securely encrypt, manage and track this information from machine to people to handheld devices. Stonebranch delivers scalable and affordable solutions that provide end-to-end integration, automation and secure data transfer, empowering HCOs to securely exchange information both internally and externally to other systems, BAs, payors, referring physicians and patients."

To download the white paper, please click http://www.stonebranch.com/whitepaperreg.html. Stonebranch's white paper library also includes business and technical papers on Managed File Transfer and Job Scheduling solutions. For more information on Infitran™, our Intelligent File Transfer solution, Indesca™, our Independent Scheduling Agents solution or Scribbos™, our healthcare communications solution, please visit: www.stonebranch.com and www.scribbos.com or contact us at: 678-366-7887.

About Stonebranch

Stonebranch provides solutions which govern business processes and data exchange for businesses.  In 2009, Stonebranch launched Scribbos™, a subsidiary of Stonebranch. Scribbos offers a secure business communications solution, which complements Stonebranch's Infitran™, its Intelligent File Transfer Solution, and Indesca™, its Independent Scheduling Agents solution. Used separately or as a suite, Stonebranch and Scribbos products and services interoperate with existing platforms/infrastructures and emerging technologies. Stonebranch clients include some of the world's largest financial, healthcare and technology institutions. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, Stonebranch has offices throughout the world, including Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Spain and Denmark. For more information on Stonebranch, please visit: www.stonebranch.com.

SOURCE Stonebranch

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