Why HIPAA Compliant Databases Are Much More Safe From Hacking

In any medical establishment which is into providing services to the patients, management of medical records and information is of utmost importance. Over the past few years all establishments have adopted procedures as set down under the guidelines of HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, The compliance is not limited to physical records alone but to the electronic records and database too, which means that all the soft wares being used for this purpose would need to be compliant too.

The soft wares have inbuilt security that is makes it difficult for any unauthorized entry into the database. Most of them use SSL or secured socket layers. Unless the user is authorized, one cannot access the database to store any data , to retrieve or to modify the data even. More importantly the software keeps a track or log of all the attempts logged in by users and hence traceability can be established.

The other feature that makes the soft wares highly secure is the fact that the databases are encrypted. When the database is encrypted it means that the data and information stored there in has been converted into a unique code which cannot be deciphered by authorized persons.

All the soft wares come with multi level access control security feature. This means that every user is provided with a password to be able to access and work on the system. The access to is restricted to a particular part of the system depending upon the user's level and accordingly access rights are defined. The passwords expire after 30 days and new passwords are generate by the system or provided by the administrator or the user themselves. In the event some unauthorized person does get to know the password, he may not find it useful at all.

Session timeouts is one other feature that is used by all HIPAA compliant soft wares. In such soft wares if a particular system is not being used, then the session automatically expires and the data will then not be accessible unless the user logs in to start a new session.

The timeout limit can be set by the administrator of the system depending upon where the system is located. If the system is in a private area where no authorized persons have entry then the session timeout can be kept for a longer period.

Thus the soft wares are built using multi level security systems including but not limited to SSL, Timeouts, access control as well as encryption of data to ensure that the patients medical records and data are protected and integrity maintained. For any unauthorized person it becomes difficult to access the information by breaching security.

Besides system security, there has to be physical security maintained in the premise through access control as well as visual supervision too. Moreover the system can have enhanced security system in place where it can shut down if any unauthorized entry is attempted.