The Changing Role Of HIM Professionals In Protecting HIPAA Compliance

The current state of the healthcare industry has underscored the importance of HIM professionals. According to a recent report, the number of exposed healthcare records nearly tripled from 5,579,438 in 2017 to 15,085,302 in 2018. Data breaches rose as well, and experts predict this trend will continue.

As cybercriminals grow more sophisticated, individuals in health information management will prove critical to data security, especially HIPAA compliance. Since HIPAA rules require that organizations have a privacy or security officer, HIM professionals often take on the responsibilities of an organization's privacy officer.

Angela Rose, a director of HIM Practice Excellence at AHIMA, spoke more on the role of HIM professionals, saying, “They'll be responsible for implementing the whole program, like policy and procedures: writing them, the training of staff, just making sure that the laws and the requirements are met as a whole..."

These individuals also will, on occasion, operate as IT security officers. However, that role has typically remained in the IT department. Rose went on to say that despite this separation, it's vital that the privacy and security officers of an organization work together to preempt issues and ensure the protection of data.