The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 was signed into law by the Clinton Administration. The Federal regulation introduced standards for protecting the privacy of personal health information. The final regulation provides protection of this information regardless of form - paper, oral or electronic.

HIPAA legislation requires all health care entities to examine their processes and develop new procedures to protect the privacy and security of patient information.

Covered Entities: Any health care providers, health plans or clearing houses that transmit medical information must meet HIPAA regulations. Also included are medical practices (including solo practices), dental practices, public health authorities, insurance and billing agencies, service organizations and universities.

The specific details of the HIPAA mandate and the privacy rule are too complex to cover here, but in general the rule requires covered entities to:

1. Be the privacy official responsible for making sure privacy procedures are adopted and followed by all personnel who use personal health information.
2. Adopt clear privacy procedures for the use and distribution of personal health information, whether written, electronic or verbal.
3. Train employees to understand the privacy policies and procedures and how to use any new document management systems that are introduced.
4. Secure patient records that contain individually identifiable health information so they are protected from access by unauthorized individuals.
5. Provide their patients with information about how their information is used, and what their privacy rights are.

If your strategy for compliance involves using traditional paper based charts for patient information, you may need to remove any patient identifiable information from the outside of the charts.

1. File system conversions:
   Island Filing Systems offers complete conversion services to replace your existing charts with new ones that offer more privacy protection.
2. Charts/Folders:
   Improve your chart privacy and increase the efficiency of filing systems. Choose from a wide range of filing products to suit your chart specifications.
3. Relabeling existing charts:
   Island Filing Systems offers a variety of products that enable you to re-label your existing charts with color coded label strips printed in-house using your PC and ink-jet printer.
4. Lockable shelving:
   The HIPAA privacy rules require health care entities to take steps to protect personal health information from breaches of privacy. Island Filing Systems' lockable shelving and rolling files prevent unauthorized access to patient charts both in the filing area and at user's workstation.