ID Experts Offers Complete Privacy and Data Breach Solutions for Healthcare

PORTLAND, Ore., June 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, data breach in healthcare is a surreptitious threat, with a data breach in healthcare occurring every two days. Complicated by federal and state governments regulating and scrutinizing the privacy of patients' protected health information (PHI), healthcare organizations are challenged by time, people, and expertise needed to assess privacy risks, prepare for a breach, and meet complex compliance regulations. To help, ID Experts is offering Complete Data Breach Care, services and technology intended to help healthcare organizations with privacy risks and compliance associated with data breach incidents, http://www2.idexpertscorp.com/breach-solutions/CompleteDataBreachCare/.

"Today healthcare organizations face enormous privacy and data breach risks. Managing these risks and compliance has been further complicated by the new HITECH regulations, often requiring organizations to seek outside help to assess risk and manage requirements," said Ian Glazer, research director on the IT Professional Identity and Privacy Strategies team at Gartner.

How to Meet HIPAA and HITECH Requirements

Providing a complete healthcare offering that meets HIPAA and HITECH privacy requirements for the prevention and assessment of data breach incidents—available modularly or as a complete solution—ID Experts Complete Data Breach Care includes pre-breach preparedness and post-breach response products and services.

Pre-Breach

• Risk Assessment: identify where PHI is stored, how it should be protected, and what's at stake should it be compromised; BreachHealthCheck® online self-assessment tool that enables organizations to measure their data breach exposure and protection;
• Mitigation and Compliance: HIPAA employee training, policy and procedure development; proactive approach to compliance;
• Breach Preparedness: custom, ready-to-execute, Incident Response Plans; RADAR™ secure web-based tool to standardize compliance with HITECH burden of proof, documenting and reporting privacy incidents;

Post-Breach

• Breach Analysis: digital forensics; root cause discovery, chain of evidence preservation, and incident risk assessment;
• Notification and Reporting: ID Experts has knowledge of sensitive populations; supports 80+ languages and can notify 500,000 patients a day to fulfill compliance requirements;
• Monitoring and Recovery: cyber, identity and credit monitoring with FraudStop™, Healthcare Identity Protection Toolkit, and reimbursement insurance; fully managed recovery approach.

Data Breach Costs Have Never Been Higher; Noncompliance Fines Upwards of $1.5 Million

While breach preparedness may not be on a CIO's, CPO's, and CISO's immediate to-do list, a risk assessment is a smart way to reduce the potential of a data breach from happening. Not only is a risk assessment required to comply with various federal and state laws, it is an effective way to identify vulnerabilities and gaps in security and privacy programs. Risk assessments cost less than 1% of the average cost of a data breach. Fines also play a factor if there is a delay in breach response and the notification to individuals. When a breach is suspected, organizations need answers fast. ID Experts offers digital forensics analysis, to determine the root cause of the incident and what PHI was lost, who was affected so the organization can determine if notification is required.

"Taking a proactive approach to compliance is the only way to limit risk," said Rick Kam, president and co-founder of ID Experts.  "With some up-front preparedness—much like a fire drill rehearsal—we can help minimize the reputational, legal, and financial risks associated with a privacy breach."

About ID Experts

ID Experts is the leader in comprehensive data breach solutions that deliver the most positive outcomes. The company has managed hundreds of data breach incidents, protecting millions of affected individuals, for leading healthcare organizations, corporations, financial institutions, universities and government agencies. In healthcare, the company contributes to relevant legislation and rules including HITECH and is a corporate member of HIMSS. ID Experts is active with organizations that advocate for privacy for Americans including ANSI/Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Management Standards Panel and the International Association of Privacy Professionals. For more information, visit http://www2.idexpertscorp.com/, join in the All Things HITECH discussion via LinkedIn at bit.ly/AllThingsHITECH and follow ID Experts on Twitter @IDExperts.

SOURCE ID Experts