Most reported side effects of different medications and drug-drug interactions derive from clinical studies of the pharmaceutical industry and through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that are on the is tracking all drugs that are on the pharmaceutical market.
At present, advancing technologies offer possibilities beyond this classical approach. Continue reading “Internet Queries Reveal Side Effects That Your Pharmacists Doesn’t Know About” »
Experts expect digital health to significantly grow throughout the year 2013 and soon allow better managing disease and wellness.
1. Innovative hardware and software
The advance of smart phones, tablets and other devices will trigger the development of innovative applications in a wide variety of areas such as medical decision support, health communications and advice tools etc.
2. Cost-saving technology
Health care costs are exploding, thus, innovative cost-effective solutions are necessary. Technology can help to save costs by providing health care solutions that lead care in directions with better efficiencies and possibilities for self-care and increased wellness. Continue reading “How Will Digital Health Develop in 2013?” »
Despite the best precautions, it must be accepted and understood that security incidents will happen. It is essential to have the team contact information as well as technologies in place to detect and respond to incidents before any incident happens. 
It was shown to be valuable to create scenarios and procedures for testing the Incident Response Plan (IRP) and to keep and up-date records that are associated with security incidents and risk measures.
Any IRP should designate a team and define their roles after a security incident, how to document incidents, and how to notify external entities. Continue reading “HIPAA Security V – What is a HIPAA Incident Response Plan?” »
The Department of Human Health Services (HHS) requires the mitigation of any risk and vulnerability within an organization that creates, stores and receives electronic Privacy Health Information (ePHI) to reduce harmful effects of security breaches and ePHI violations.
Mitigation procedures may include, but are not limited to, functional and technical corrective measures, employment actions (training procedures, terminations etc.), and inviting business associates into the dialogue to make them aware of a security breach.
Any mitigation should include all characteristics of the HIPAA Security Rule such as administrative policies and procedures, physical workstation security and media control and technical safeguards Continue reading “HIPAA Security IV – What is HIPAA Mitigation?” »
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requires a detailed risk analysis to show the proper implementation of safeguards specified in the HIPAA Security Rule.
HIPAA compliance is not optional but mandatory and HIPAA risk analysis is essential to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of electronic Privacy Health Information (ePHI).
There are administrative, physical and technical safeguards. Administrative safeguards include risk analysis of information access controls, management processes, procedures of operational security, incident response and recovery plans, and periodic technical and non-technical reviews. Physical safeguards Continue reading “HIPAA Security III – What is HIPAA risk analysis?” »
HIPAA requires the evaluation of security policies and procedures to ensure that they are up-to-date, and they reflect any environmental and operational changes of electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI). The Evaluation Standard in the HIPAA Security Regulation aims to ensure the establishment and maintenance of security policies, security procedures and technical safeguards.
The evaluations must be completed periodically but also due to environmental (e.g. hardware, software and media), Continue reading “HIPAA Security II – Security Evaluation” »
The number of breaches in the electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) has drastically grown within the past few years.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule was created to offer administrative, physical, and technical guidelines to ePHI.
Electronic PHI is any information that contains individually identifiable health data. This information contains a documentation of Continue reading “HIPAA Security I – ePHI Defined” »
