Vendor Compliance Management – An essential component in Organization’s Safety Net
Today’s globalized business environment besides being technologically enabled is also a high-risk one wherein small errors can lead to severe consequences. Use of technological innovations alone does not help in reducing costs and improving an organization’s performance. The design, process, and technology must work in harmony to achieve good results.
Irrespective of the industry sector, vendors form an important part of the every organization’s operational requirement. In case of the healthcare industry, the business associates, insurance partners and healthcare providers play the role of vendors who are given access to the critical records and personal information of the customers. However, every organization needs to have an efficient vendor compliance management strategy in place. Thus before hiring the services of any vendor, it is imperative to verify their credentials.
Further, with information being an important by-product of a vendor compliance management system, reports from Clearinghouse showcase more than 158 million U.S. residents exposed due to security breaches in less than 7 years. The healthcare industry, with its outsourcing needs become a part of the widely networked business. With their diverse security needs, the industry verticals face risk, identity, and access management issues.
Health care industry reports data breaches having affected nearly 11.6 million individuals and out of which 6 million issues were related to breaches through business associates. In an attempt to safeguard the vital personal data which has a meaningful use in the healthcare sector, service providers and IT organizations have worked out vendor compliance management solutions that will help the medical institutions stay clear of any identity and access management issues.
Further, by reforming the HIPAA and HITECH acts, Business Associates also face similar penalties that are applicable to Covered Entities for non-compliance with the provisions of the Security Rule. The covered entities under HIPAA include Doctors, Dentists, Chiropractors, and Psychologists, Nursing care assistants and all those who deal with patient health information. The Business associates include a larger group made up of off-site backup facilities, transcription, billing, remote managed services, IT Service Provider, Third party administrators, Pharmacy benefit managers as well as attorneys and law firms with access to PHI.
Leading service providers also implement effective vendor compliance management solutions, as part of the unified security monitoring system. These cloud based solutions offer continuous IT compliance and security with real-time dashboards, automated risk management tools, a policy based risk model with real-time risk status, a centralized repository for all compliance related evidence with integrated vendor management. Such end-to-end automation process ensures cost reduction with elimination of manual process and gives rise to a proactive compliance environment.
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