New breach reporting guidelines require healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses to promptly notify affected individuals when their health information is breached. To help comply with the new regulations, 3M Health Information Systems has released a breach notification tool available with new versions of 3M™ ChartRelease™ Software and 3M™ DisclosureTrac™ Software.
The new functionality provides a template for creating breach notifications, making it possible to generate customized letters into which the patient name, address, and specific information about the breach incident can be inserted. The software records and saves all breach notifications and provides a reporting capability to track specific breach incidents by date or patient.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) strengthened requirements for regulation and enforcement of healthcare privacy and security. Healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses covered by HIPAA must not only notify affected individuals when their health information is breached, but must also report breach incidents to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the media in cases where a breach affects more than 500 individuals.
“Protecting health information is a vital concern for all healthcare facilities,” said Ray Terrill, senior vice president for 3M Health Information Systems. “If a breach occurs, it’s essential that healthcare organizations have a plan in place to respond immediately. By enhancing our current software to further support the breach notification requirement, our clients can more quickly communicate and report breach incidents.”
The new breach notification and reporting capability is built in to 3M ChartRelease, a unified system for managing the release of information process for paper, electronic, or hybrid records, and 3M DisclosureTrac, an automated tool for tracking and reporting the disclosure of patient health information at the point of service throughout the healthcare facility.
The new functionality is available with the 3M Platform 7, Feature Pack 2 release, the next generation of 3M’s unified services platform for 3M dictation, transcription, speech recognition, document management, and clinical management solutions. Using the latest advancements in Microsoft® and speech technologies, the new platform accelerates documentation improvement efforts and EHR adoption, and helps clients meet cost management goals through streamlined provider workflow, increased transcriptionist productivity, and improved document accuracy.
More information about 3M’s breach notification capability is available at www.3Mhis.com or by calling 800-367-2447.
About 3M Health Information Systems
3M Health Information Systems delivers comprehensive software and consulting services to help organizations worldwide improve documentation, quality, and financial performance across the healthcare continuum. 3M offers integrated solutions for transcription, speech recognition, clinical documentation improvement, documentation management, computer-assisted coding, quality, and revenue cycle management, effectively meeting the industry’s changing needs. With more than 25 years of healthcare experience and expertise, 3M works as a trusted and stable business partner to provide reliable implementation, training, and support services. For more information about 3M Health Information Systems products and services, visit www.3Mhis.com or call 800-367-2447.
3M, ChartRelease, and DisclosureTrac are trademark of the 3M Company. Microsoft is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies.
For 3M:Mollie Houns, 952-920-6951Price Houns AssociatesorMary Clemens, 651-733-88063M Public Relations andCorporate Communications
