Maintaining Regulatory Compliance: The Value of Partnering with an Expert
SRCL
January 20, 2022
An effective regulatory compliance program can go a long way toward preserving safety and security while avoiding costly fines. Unfortunately, keeping up with changing regulatory requirements can be challenging-especially as your healthcare organization wrestles with other pressing issues, not the least of which is a continuing pandemic.
Although there are numerous regulations that span a variety of topics, worker safety and data privacy should be top priorities. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) governs worker safety, requiring healthcare facilities to follow a comprehensive set of rules designed to reduce risk. The Department of Health and Human Services regulates protected health information per the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
In 2022, there are factors to be aware of in both of these regulatory areas. OSHA, for example, has a new requirement that addresses the pandemic, calling for entities to create a COVID-19 plan that covers patient screening, personal protection, physical distancing, cleaning and disinfection, ventilation, vaccination, training, and more.
Regarding information security, compliance deadlines for the 21st Century Cures Act-a bipartisan law that promotes interoperability and gives patients greater access to their own health information-are on the horizon. A key part of this legislation relates to information blocking, which occurs when an entity intentionally or unintentionally interferes with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information (EHI). Your organization should be reviewing its privacy and security policies, assessing risk, making updates, and offering training to ensure HIPAA compliance while avoiding information blocking. The right partner can provide expertise to support you with this.
Staying Ahead of the Challenges
Given all this change, it's important to make sure you're consistently meeting evolving regulations. One way to do this is to partner with a compliance authority like Stericycle. Our team of in-house OSHA and HIPAA experts has the knowledge and experience to help you remain compliant even amid changing regulations and dynamic situations. By working with us, you can
Assess Your Risk with Our OSHA and HIPAA Compliance Assessment Tool
The first step toward compliance is understanding your risks. In less than five minutes, you can take a simple self-assessment that can help you identify potential gaps in your OSHA and HIPAA compliance programs.
Stericycle's proprietary Compliance Assessment Tool helps to identify potential risks associated with your facility's OSHA and HIPAA programs by asking about your current policies, procedures, trainings, and documentation, and providing you with a quantifiable estimate of the potential OSHA and HIPAA compliance risk to your facility. From there, our local representatives can help you determine the best approach to address any concerns and help you maintain compliance.
Assess your OSHA and HIPAA compliance programs, and get your recommendations today!
*Feature included as part of our Steri-Safe OSHA Preferred and Steri-Safe Platinum Offerings
Disclaimer
Stericycle Inc. published this content on 20 January 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 19 January 2022 22:25:10 UTC.