WKU News

The HIPAA Compliance and Best Practices for Managing Information Protection & Storage Web seminar was held on Wednesday, March 31, 2010.
Staff attendees included: Pat Blewett, M.D., Medical Director, Jeff Rose, Associate Director, Stacie Sutter, Business Manager, Kathy Trulock, HIPAA Coordinator, Keith Lancaster, Systems Administrator, Terri Cunningham, Marketing Coordinator, Jacob Martin, Student Worker Shelly Nolloth, Medical Accounts Assoiciate and Sondra Schilke, Medical Accounts Associate.

The webinar discussed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which has been part of the healthcare landscape for years. Now that same landscape is changing rapidly with the growing adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 (ARRA). The ARRA legislation makes billions of dollars available to accelerate the adoption of electronic records and extends HIPAA requirements to third-party partners and vendors. In addition, it establishes new requirements for privacy and security, as well as more aggressive enforcement and increased penalties for violations.

It will be challenging for all healthcare institutions to understand these new requirements. The webinar participants were educated about:

• The changes to HIPAA.
  
  
• Questions to ask vendors to verify HIPAA compliance.
  
  
• Best practices that will aid in compliance and improve the management of both paper and electronic health records.
  
  
• The steps taken by one medical center to ensure compliance and how the HIPAA changes have impacted their organization.
  
  
  
  Sponsored by:
  
  
  
  Featured Speakers:
  Shawna Ridley, MBA, RHIA Director of Health Information Management UT Southwestern Medical Center
  Greg Pemberton, Esq., CIPP/G/C Corporate Counsel & Manager of Privacy and Compliance Iron Mountain
  
  Moderator: Bernie Monegain Editor Healthcare IT News
  
  
  To view photos from this webinar please visit our Photo Gallery