Be Compliant or Be Fined

Be compliant or be fined. While that statement may seem harsh and unforgiving, when it comes to protecting the privacy of your patients that is the only way to look at things. To help safeguard the medical information of patients, the government implemented the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This law requires a strict adherence to policies and regulations to ensure the protection of all patient data.

Anyone working within the medical profession knows the importance of staying up-to-date and compliant with all HIPAA rules and regulations. Unfortunately, for many in the medical profession that have to keep records up-to-date and ensure all decisions are HIPAA compliant, this is just one big task in a sea of never-ending stressors and work. This is why a policy management software such as The Guard is so useful to any office or hospital.

Just as any law, there are many changes that occur every year. As technology grows, so does the importance of complying with each of these changes. A well-built policy management tool will update as the laws change and offer checklists to ensure the entire office is in compliance with the strict HIPAA laws.

For those that fail to meet the requirements of HIPAA rules, strict punishment is enforced. Hospitals have been fined almost a quarter of a million dollars for failing to comply, as well as a host of other fines, fees, and stipulations. Even worse than the monetary cost to an organization is the trust factor. A patient and their doctor have a special bond that relies on honesty and trust. Hospitals and organizations that do not take that bond seriously run the risk of losing the trust of their patients, making their job more difficult or their care less effective.

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Policy Management Software

As organizations grow, they face a continuous increase in the number and complexity of policies and procedures that staff members need to share and collaborate with one another. This is one of the biggest challenges for organizations of all types and sizes. It involves demonstrating compliance to auditors and the best practices to staff. This is required not just at periodic intervals, but also continuously and instantly to a variety of stakeholders.

It is essential to have high quality policy management software to help a company to be on top of itself. Such software allows users to create and refine policies and procedures in compliance with standards that are relevant. When policies are not maintained properly, its value decreases and the policy loses its authority and relevance.

Increasing regulatory requirements these days necessitates organizations be proactive in their management of important documents. Having up-to-date policy reduces the chance of liability and demonstrates an organization is acting in solid governance to government authorities, outside organizations, and even itself.

Misplaced documentation (either through poor organizational structure or poor systems architecture) can cost an organization valuable time, energy, and resources. The easier it is for staff to find documents and update them in a distributed real-time manner, the easier it is to ensure that the most up-to-date information is at the fingertips of those who need it. It is very helpful to have a means of recovering information if portions of a company’s policies, procedures, and guidelines are missing or no longer relevant. This aids in the flexibility of an organization tobounce back on its feet during times of change or disarray.

An end-to-end policy management package ensures that the creation, preservation, and deletion of information in the documentation occur in a step-by-step procedural manner. This process should be free from obstacles such as interference from conflicting processes, confusion on what processes are involved, and confusion as to the roles and responsibilities of who updates what and is accountable for what. A good policy management system takes all of these factors into account, while delegating authority and authorship as needed.

A proper policy management system will not only save time and energy but ultimately the bottom line expenses. There are a countless number of lost work hours that result from creating, recreating, and updating an organization’s policy in an inefficient manner. A seamless process in this regard allows an organization to use human resources elsewhere by taking care of the overhead.

In summary, good policy management software helps an organization maintain rigorous control over its infrastructure, track usage, update, and assimilate various components distributed throughout the organization. It gives individuals in the company a solid means of tracking policy changes and ensuring that authority in updates is delegated, and escalated, to the right parties at the right time. It can continuously reduce ineffective workflows by tracking changes throughout the process without the stopping and backtracking associated with manual policy management.

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