In a press release issued last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a long-awaited update to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gave the understatement of the year in the announcement: “Much has changed in health care since HIPAA was enacted over fifteen years ago…” Some of the most significant changes in health care have been as a result of the original requirements of HIPAA. Now everyone who has been to a medical professional is familiar with signing a consent form indicating they have seen a Notice of Privacy Practices. This update to HIPAA, which will go into effect on March 26, 2013, and require compliance by September 23, 2013, has a number of[…]
Category: Compliance
Two weeks ago, I finally got a chance to try out a Windows 8 system. First, I have to give huge kudos to Dell, who makes the XPS 12 system I’m playing with. This system seems to be the ideal platform for a Windows 8 user. A thin and light notebook with plenty of power, with the ability to flip the screen around and make it into a touchscreen tablet. That said, during my initial installation of the system, alarm bells immediately rang in my head. “This system doesn’t comply with many password policies!” I found that as I joined my Windows 8 system to my company’s domain (which enforces a number of things through group policy), some configurations were allowed[…]