OCR’s administration and enforcement of the Security Rule intends to check duplication and increase efficiencies
HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius has announced that authority for the administration and enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule, has been delegated to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
OCR’s administration and enforcement of the Security Rule intends to check duplication and increase efficiencies, in how the department ensures that Americans’ health information privacy is protected.
HHS has the authority for administration and enforcement of the federal standards for health information privacy called for in HIPAA. The Privacy Rule offers federal protections for personal health information held by covered entities and provides patients a suite of rights with regard to that information.
The Security Rule specifies a series of administrative, technical, and physical security procedures for covered entities to use, to assure the confidentiality of electronic protected health information.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), mandated improved enforcement of the Privacy Rule and the Security Rule.