HIPAA Enforcement Actions

The Department of Health and Human Services has launched the first audit of a hospital's compliance with HIPAA's security and privacy rules since they went into effect in 2005. According to Barry Runyon, an analyst at Gartner quoted in this article, it is likely that there will be more unannounced audits in the future. What effect this will have is anyone's guess, though in Piedmont's case the audit has already lead to the approval of a 1.3 million dollar item for encryption software in next year's hospital budget. It seems safe to assume that there will be a number of similar purchases in the health care industry going forward.