Posts Tagged ‘electronic health records’

2 By utalley on June 29th, 2010

Meet Healthcare Compliance Mandates and Manage Risk with a Solid Information Management Strategy and Solution

The health care industry is challenged with a huge and rapidly growing volume of patient records, emails, reports, prescriptions, insurance documents and other information – all of which have to be properly managed and stored in accordance with compliance regulations such as HIPAA. Meeting these mandates requires that organizations maintain strict governance over the privacy, security and long-term archiving of patient records and other health care-related information. And now with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act injecting billions into health information technology projects, including stimulus funds for the adoption of Electronic Health Records technology (EHR), much more health care information will be in electronic form.

The inherently litigious environment of the health care industry, exponentially-increasing amounts of data, compounded with strict compliance requirements, are forcing hospitals and health care providers to get a better handle on their electronic information. This is not without its challenges, according to a recent article in FierceEMR, “EHR implementations open ‘cans of compliance worms,’” which discusses decisions and issues that need to be addressed when adopting EHR technology.

In the article, Cheryl Rice, VP and chief corporate responsibility officer for Cincinnati-based Catholic Health care Partners notes that one of the ‘four pressing issues’ hospitals face while converting to EHRs is audits and litigation defense. This speaks to the growing amount of discoverable information held in EHR systems, which means it is important that as health care providers increase their use of EHR systems, they also implement an information management and proactive eDiscovery solution, to help ensure compliance, and reduce litigation.

StoredIQ’s Intelligent Information Management Platform has helped many companies – including a leading health care provider – address enterprise-level information management. With our auditable solution, companies can automate their records retention and disposition strategy to comply with corporate information governance guidelines (IP, HR, trade secrets, etc.), as well as regulatory compliance mandates (PII, PCI, HIPAA, etc.) – reducing overall risk and cost. StoredIQ provides health care organizations with a range of business-critical benefits, including the ability to:

  • Comply with corporate policy and government regulations
  • Reduce risk, preempt litigation and avoid fines
  • Protect sensitive, business-critical information
  • Automate management of storage and retention policies
  • Optimize storage and delete unnecessary information

As the health care industry moves toward greater use of electronic medical records, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies – any organization that is managing patient information – should have a solution that helps meet escalating compliance requirements, mitigate risk and minimize cost.

For more information on StoredIQ’s Intelligent Information Management Solution email info@storediq.com.

TOPICS: eDiscovery, health care, information management, litigation readiness