How Can a Modern-Day Copier Help with HIPAA Compliance?

The Importance of Data for Healthcare

The growth of digitalization in healthcare has led to better patient care and improved service delivery by healthcare providers. However, due to the abundance of personally identifiable information, it has made data quite vulnerable within the industry. Data is valuable within healthcare, from personal to financial data, and it’s no surprise that it is sought after by hackers and bad actors looking to get away with the information.

There’s the hectic workload medical personnel go through daily within hospitals and healthcare settings. This means accessing medical records, cloud networks, and other digital tools can have their lapses, such as sensitive information left in print queues or printed documents left out in the open where anyone can pick them up.

Because of the potential major security threats to data, health care organizations are required by the Department of Health and Human Services to make sure that all medical practices maintain full HIPAA security standards in all their devices, and this includes copiers and printers.

It can be difficult to navigate the expectations of HIPAA guidelines while ensuring the technology in your office is up to date. But you can, starting with the proper print solutions and the right copier.  Novatech has helped companies in the healthcare space improve their data security and apply strategies to keep HIPAA compliance when it comes to their print devices.

In this article, we’re here to let you know how the modern-day copier, when set up right, can be HIPAA compliant. Not only are you keeping up with the necessary processes of maintaining HIPAA compliance, but you also keep your practice operating serving the health needs of your patients.

Printer Security and HIPAA

If you work in the healthcare industry, you know that HIPAA applies to any health care provider who transmits health information in electronic form. Hospitals and clinics deal with digital data every day, from medical records, health insurance forms and billings going through the organizational network.

Printers and copiers are at the center of daily document workflows, being multifunctional devices that print all necessary paperwork for your medical office. What gets printed must have standards of distribution and chain of custody in a consistent manner for HIPAA compliance. Do you have print policies set up for your medical office?

Your Copier Can… Secure Data Through Print Security Software

Modern copiers have functions that can help with securing information. For example, you can limit authorized personnel allowed to transmit data from your printers and copiers. You can add more security measures with print security software like PaperCut or Uniflow. Print software can be used to set global permissions and track printing activity. From each print job and who’s printing them, this will help make sure that sensitive information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Print software also utilizes Private Print settings that you can setup on your networked devices. This setting allows print jobs to only be released when you are physically at the copier. This also keeps documents off the output tray where they can be easily accessed by anyone.

Your Copier Can… Secure Data Through User Authentication

There are additional layers of security you can add to your daily operations to reduce the risk of HIPAA violations. This is through user authentication and proximity printing. These measures involve company ID badges or fingerprint scanning, or codes required by users to put in.

Proximity printing utilizes mobile phones to verify they are in proximity to the printer, so the print job is released to the right person. Another added benefit to adding user authentication devices to all your printers and copiers in your office is that it allows for auditing of each of your team member’s copy, print, and scan usage.

Your Copier Can… Secure Data Through Encryption

Printers and copiers have varying methods of encrypting data, even securing print jobs in transit. End-to-end encryption is a feature within modern printers and copiers, especially with print software solutions that have private cloud servers where print jobs can be cleared systematically. Printer hard drive disk encryptions can be included with your printers or copiers, which allow you to clear stored files from the device’s hard drive.

If you have questions on how to further implement more secure measures to make your office HIPAA compliant, reach out to us at Novatech. We’d love to help your business become compliant and make sure your data within your printer networks is protected and secure.