WASHINGTON, April 27, 2006 – The U. S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs faced a daunting task – choosing an organization to train the nation’s VA Hospitals Privacy and Security Compliance officials on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Since each official was responsible for compliance with the federal regulation protecting patient data for their respective hospital, a comprehensive training program was required. HIPAA Academy was chosen based on their reputation in the healthcare industry for high-quality and comprehensive HIPAA training solutions.

“HIPAA Academy is one of the finest educational organizations with whom I have had the pleasure to work. The staff are extremely knowledgeable and experienced both in private sector and government sector security legislation” stated Lydia Duckworth, HIPAA Security Project Manager for the VA.

Uday ‘Ali’ Pabrai, CEO of HIPAA Academy, was involved n the project from the beginning and delivered the security training.  “During our work together, Ali Pabrai was able to impart best practices for developing disaster recovery plans, the technical specifications for public key infrastructure and other encryption based solutions, wireless security requirements and the general state of HIPAA Security compliance.”

“I welcome the opportunity to work with HIPAA Academy again in the future and would recommend this organization to anyone looking to develop security or privacy training tailored to their particular environment whether you are a healthcare organization or a business associate of a health care organization”, said Duckworth.

About the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is responsible for providing federal benefits to veterans and their families. Headed by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, VA is the second largest of the 15 Cabinet departments and operates nationwide programs for health care, financial assistance and burial benefits. VA’s health care system now includes 154 medical centers, with at least one in each state, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.  VA operates more than 1,300 sites of care, including 875 ambulatory care and community-based outpatient clinics, 136 nursing homes, 43 residential rehabilitation treatment programs, 206 Veterans Centers and 88 comprehensive home-care programs.  VA health care facilities provide a broad spectrum of medical, surgical and rehabilitative care.

More than 5.3 million people received care in VA health care facilities in 2005.  By the end of fiscal year 2005, 78 percent of all disabled and low-income veterans had enrolled with VA for health care; 65 percent of them were treated by VA.  In 2005, VA inpatient facilities treated 587,000 patients.  VA’s outpatient clinics registered nearly 57.5 million visits.

About HIPAA Academy

HIPAA Academy delivers compliance solutions across the United States every day. Deep knowledge of the HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley regulations is substantiated with hands-on experience implementing technical solutions in the healthcare industry. The HIPAA Academy introduced the industry's first, and today’s leading, credentials for HIPAA skills certification: Certified HIPAA Professional (CHP™) and Certified HIPAA Security Specialist™ (CHSS™).

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HIPAA ACADEMY TRAINING COURSES OVERVIEW

Certified HIPAA Security Specialist™ (CHSS™)

A core aspect of the HIPAA legislation is to secure electronic medical records. In this HIPAA Security boot camp we examine all defined HIPAA security specifications and identify options and solutions available to secure health care entities.
The HIPAA security provision will result in substantial investment in e-business initiatives and deployment of security technology specifically in the health-care and insurance industries. The Certified HIPAA Security Specialist™ (CHSS™) training helps you understand the core elements for defining the framework towards HIPAA’s security compliance. From this HIPAA security compliance training boot camp you will learn the following:

• Understand all required and addressable HIPAA Security implementation specifications
• Analyze international security standards, ISO’s 17799 and the BS 7799
• Review core elements of a security policy document for a health care entity
• Examine security technologies that enable support for HIPAA’s security requirements
• Review specific requirements and implementation features within each security category
• Identify core elements of a compliance plan that every health care entity is required to develop for business continuity and disaster recovery

Certified HIPAA Professional (CHP™)

The Certified HIPAA Professional certification training helps you better understand HIPAA's Administrative Simplification Act as well as how to create a framework for initiating and working towards a blueprint for HIPAA compliance. From this boot camp you will learn the following about HIPAA:

• Understand why HIPAA requirements will cause significant changes in policies, procedures and processes within the organization in the handling of patient records.
• Examine how implementing HIPAA will affect the way healthcare entities organize and staff to achieve and monitor compliance with patient privacy/confidentiality needs.
• Step through qualifications and positioning strategies for a Chief Privacy Officer and requirements for a Chief Security Officer.
• Learn why HIPAA compliance is better focused as a business issue than as an IT issue, although IT will play a major role in implementing compliant systems.
• Review specific requirements and implementation features within each security category.

Step through how to plan and prepare for HIPAA compliance. HIPAA is about awareness first, assessment second and finally action focused on gaps identified.

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