Current trends in healthcare skew toward more reliance on tech than ever before. Between telemedicine, data management practices, and countless other recent developments, hiring managed services providers (MSPs) is one of the easiest ways for practices to keep up with the times.

Getting your practice up to code when it comes to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations can seem challenging upon first glance, but knowing where your IT efforts must be focused is the first step. In this article, we’ll zero in on four of the most critical items you must look into to become HIPAA-compliant.

We’re long past the time when healthcare entities could justify being hesitant about cloud computing. It has surpassed on-site IT in terms of reliability and security if you know how to manage it properly. Just take a look at all the business benefits of cloud computing!
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The increasing demand for doctors’ time means they have less time to review patient records.

HIPAA’s rules pertaining to IT are problematic to say the least, but things have become much clearer over the course of the past year. However, there are still a few areas in which your office might not be compliant. This isn’t necessarily through negligence on your part, but rather a lack of understanding as to the requirements.

Surveys and studies show that wireless device usage in the healthcare industry is growing at an exponential rate, falling in line with the general trend in today’s society. The IT staff must work harder to monitor all the devices using the network, but there are Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions that can make their jobs easier.

First off, what is an insider threat in healthcare? An insider threat is an individual inside an organization discovered to have been accessing healthcare records without authorization. Healthcare companies must take steps to reduce the potential for insider threats, which is their top source of security incidents.

Social Media can be an effective tool for sharing experiences, building professional connections, and broadcasting conventional healthcare announcements to the public. However, careless posts that have client or patient-specific information could ruin the reputation of any healthcare organization.

Mobile devices have revolutionized the healthcare industry: They’re convenient and significantly improve work efficiency and patients’ satisfaction. Yet they also come with risks. Patient data handled by those devices can be leaked. That’s why every healthcare provider needs to be extra careful about data security when using mobile devices.

Hospitals and healthcare organizations are usually the first victims of malware attacks. WannaCry ransomware -- malicious software that encrypts files until the victim decides to pay the Bitcoin ransom -- took advantage of this when it hit several healthcare institutions last month.

Two trends have been rising in popularity in tandem: HIPAA compliance audits and social media. Obviously both of these are far too important to be correlated directly, but they do intersect with each other. Social media tends to push people toward oversharing, and that’s definitely something you don’t want when hosting regulated patient data.