As more and more healthcare providers and development companies start incorporating evolving technologies to store user data, it has become harder than ever before to maintain the safety and privacy of that data.

While The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) does outline and address the security standards that need to be maintained by healthcare providers but it can be rather challenging for developing companies to put in place on their own. The HITRUST CSF provides a simper and holistic approach to protecting sensitive healthcare data which has helped give it major traction among many organizations thanks to the wide scope and scalability offers.  

What is HITRUST Certification & How Do You Get HITRUST Certified?

Over the years, HITRUST has become the most widely applied security framework for healthcare providers in the USA. Thanks to the increasing popularity it has gained, over 15,000 CSF Assessments were made in 2015 alone and that number has only gone up since then. So, what‘s the difference between HIPAA and HITRUST?

Rather focusing on primarily complying with HIPAA, HITRUST delivers a more flexible and all inclusive solution for security that includes HIPAA, HITECH, PCI, COBIT, NIST, FTC, and more to provide development companies and all in one solution to protect the healthcare data of their employees, customers, and users. HITRUST uses HIPAA for its base and builds upon it to expand its principles to create a standardized and certifiable framework that multiple organizations can implement.

Why should you get your development company certified?

Companies looking to comply with HIPAA and federal regulations for their software development can more comprehensively integrate national and global regulatory security and privacy measures which far exceed those of HIPAA alone.

HITRUST acts as a badge of recognition that reflects an organization’s commitment to maintaining the best possible security for their information. While complying with HITRUST CSF isn’t essential for any organization, it does have a wide variety of benefits that make it more than worth it.

It Helps You Stand Out

Who would you rather work with? A Company with barely passable security or a company that exceeds regulatory requirements to deliver more comprehensive privacy and data security? The answer is pretty cut and dry.

When it comes down to HITRUST CSF it’s a matter of giving customers what they want. When your organization, healthcare business or development company is offering better security for user’s data and privacy, it goes without saying that it will give you a competitive advantage over other organizations.

The ever increasing number of Healthcare payers need to know that whatever information you have from them is safe which is exactly what a HITRUST certification does. It shows an organization’s dedicated commitment to maintaining the high-end protection for their healthcare data which can be a determining factor for any company or organization that does collect it.

Considerably Shorter Audit Times

One of the biggest benefits of being HITRUST certified is that you can effectively reduce the time your organization wastes during an auditing period. Without a HITRUST certification, your organization will have to go through individual auditing processes from HIPAA, NIST, FRC and many others to comply with FDA’s digital health requirements. These processes not only take time but can end up costing your organization more than you think.

With HITRUST certification you can waive numerous audits requested by multiple different regulation certification alliances. With a shorter auditing period, you can maintain the efficiency and productivity of your business and focus more on developing and growing your business.

Boosts & Strengthen Security

Besides being a powerful branding tool for your business, HITRUST also boosts security framework. Since HITRUST incorporates multiple regulations and frameworks it delivers more in-depth and prescriptive security measures that are up to date with modern times.

As mentioned before, HITRUST CSF includes multiple federal and state regulations that are delivered using a risk-based approach to help organizations challenge the many security concerns we face today. Being aware of different regulations, it aids organizations in identifying risks and gaps in their security while providing accurate steps that can be taken to cover them making it indispensable to organizations that want to keep security to stay up to date.

Offers Provable Certification

One of the biggest flaws of using HIPAA and other regulatory frameworks is that none of them provide a set list of requirements that can verify an organization as “compliant” with their regulations. This leads to organizations emulating their own version of the guidelines provided by regulatory bodies that result in security frameworks that can’t be proven as being compliant. So, how’s that different from a HITRUST certification?

For starters, HITRUST certification can only be provided after an organization's security framework is accessed by an official HITRUST assessor. Once the assessment is successfully completed, and your organization is deemed compliant, this will also reduce the gaps tied to your own security protocols.

It’s a Scalable & Modern Solution

Getting HITRUST certified can be a long and arduous process but once you've been certified, your organization will have an easily scalable security framework that’s going to save to you time, effort and resources in the long run.

HITRUST is a comprehensive yet surprisingly flexible framework that can generate multiple reports to address legislative and regulatory requirements as well as making it exceptionally easy to implement any new regulations that might come up in the future.

Is HITRUST Worth it?

The short answer, yes.

Whether you’re in the healthcare company or a development company, having HITRUST certification will undoubtedly benefit your business in both the short and long term. It isn’t all good though.

You’ll be required to go through the certification process every year to make sure your security framework is in compliance but when compared to the branding and security benefits, HITRUST makes more than up for it.