Best practices for HIPAA-Compliant networking

Wireless LANs, when coupled with Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Location Asset Tracking, Voice, and other technologies, play a key role in healthcare technology innovation because they provide the ability to access information from a variety of sources regardless of one’s position within the healthcare facility, help decrease costly and sometimes impractical wired infrastructure throughout the campus, and increase efficiency by eliminating error-prone transcriptions. 

 

WLANs are no longer an optional convenience for a hospital network, but rather a critical part of the 

network infrastructure that administrators, clinicians, patients, and many others depend upon to provide state-of-the-art medical care. 

 

Many of the advances in technology designed to improve patient care are also subject to the most stringent compliance requirements. EMR and Bar Code Medicine Administration (BCMA) are two great examples of technological enhancements that focus on providing more immediate and accurate access to patient data, and are two of the major drivers for healthcare facilities to implement wireless LAN technology.

 

Because of all these technologies and the many more to come that will require wireless infrastructure in healthcare facilities, countries have had to designate best practices for technology usage. In the US, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) defines the policy for how electronic protected health information (ePHI) should be protected.

 

Please click through to our whitepaper, Wireless LAN Best Practices for Compliant Care, to learn the Best Practices for HIPAA-compliant networking.

 

In this whitepaper, I cover the three major components to complying with the US HIPAA standards to ensure HIPAA compliance and reduce WLAN risk.