Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
This report focuses on HHS, one of the United States government agency mandated with providing and protecting health among the Americans, especially the helpless. The federal government has allotted about a quarter of its outlays to HHS Medicare and Medicaid insurance. As a result, this agency works with other governmental agencies to ensure grants are provided to help the affected people (HHS, 2012b). In addition, the agency has many departments that are assigned different programs and tasks. Among these programs, the information technology is fundamental in ensuring the confidentiality and privacy of the patients’ data (HHS, 2012b).
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Objective of the study
Based on the significance of the personal privacy especially the health information, this report was prepared to address various issues that could improve the data storage processes by health provider. The report was prepared to meet the following objectives:
- To point out the major challenges face by HHS in their attempts to maintain high security on health information.
- To study the activities carried out by HHS on information security.
- To recommend the possible ways to alleviate poor data management and unlawful spreading of personal information.
- Lastly, the study was primarily conducted to assess the cyber security in HHS
Problem statement
In the recent past, the United States has been very active in effecting technology in the health sector. This was in the efforts to alleviate the cumbersome work done manually on the health records. It emerged pathetic when much information could be lost because of natural calamities such as floods and earthquake. Cases such as the Katrina hurricanes led to destruction of health information because many records were destroyed and swept away by water. As a result, it was very hard to retrieve health histories of various patients hence complicating treatment process.
To rescue the situation, the federal government has been very eager to computerize the health records program as well as other areas requiring data management. The move was meant to ease the information retrieval for quicker process in hospitals and other government supported health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. In addition, computerization of the health program is fundamental in keeping large amount of information in very compact and secure data storage devices in computers (HHS, 2012a).
However, the evolution of computer software has come up with both advantages and disadvantages as hacking has become disastrous hence increasing insecurity of data stored in the computers (HHS, 2012a). More so, some workers in the HSS have been directly or indirectly contributed to health information insecurity because of negligence (HHS, 2012a).
The assessment process and report
- Family: Strategic Planning
- Class: Management
- Family: Awareness and Training
- Class: health
- Family: Contingency Planning
- Class: health
- Family: Maintenance
- Class: health
References
GAO. (2006). Information Security department Of Health and Human Services Needs To Fully Implement Its Program.
HHS. (2012a). About HHS. Web.
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HHS. (2012b). Information Security and Privacy Program: HHS Cyber security Program – Leadership for IT Security & Privacy across HHS. Web.
Howard, P. D. (2011). FISMA Principles and Best Practices: Beyond Compliance. Florida: Auerbach Publications.
NIST. (2010). Guide for Assessing the Security Controls in Federal Information Systems and Organizations: Building Effective Security Assessment Plans. Gaithersburg, MD: Computer Security Division Information Technology Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology.