HIPAA Programs: Design and Implementation

PROGRAM A dictionary definition of program might be “a plan or procedure for dealing with some matter,” or “a series of steps to be carried out to accomplish some goal.” If one expands these definitions to include an explicitly stated ongoing component, then one can establish a working definition for program as it is meant in the context of a HIPAA program. Thus, our definition would be “a plan or procedure for dealing with some matter on an ongoing basis.” It is the “ongoing” characteristic that makes a program distinct from a project. This ar t ic le descr ibes a program approach to deal with the security and privacy standards required by HIPAA. It is the significant ongoing requirements of these two standards that set security and privacy apart from the other standards, including transactions and identifiers. The transaction and identifier standards, once in place, require little ongoing oversight except to deal with those issues that organizations already face today, such as coding errors and transmission errors. Transactions and identifiers are a one-time implementation and of a project nature.