Wednesday, February 22, 2012

I'm emailing you 1.5 million bucks... (HIPAA / HITECH Part 4: Email Security, ePHI & HIPAA)

How many times have you accidentally emailed something you wish you hadn't?   Forgotten to remove someone's address from a "reply all?"

These sort of simple, unintentional slip-ups can LITERALLY COST YOU MILLIONS in this age of enforced penalties for HITECH / HIPAA breaches.

If your organization handles Protected Healthcare Information (PHI), and you want a way to protect yourself from this scenario, read on...

Quick recap:  here's the quick summary of our suggestions on how to get started with HIPAA & HITECH compliance:

If you've not done it, though, I cannot stress enough the importance of #1 - The Self Assessment.   You simply have to get a good baseline for where you stand.    CALL US  for more details.   (Hint - it can probably be done very well for under $100 / mo)

Now that you've done your self-assessment....









On to an important part of #7 - EMAIL ENCRYPTION.

The HHS specifically addresses email security in several documents.   An easy read is one of the "Safeguards" documents you can find right here.

Specifically, is email encryption mandated for all transfer of ePHI?   No.

BUT......    the safeguard principle that colors every aspect of compliance states the following:

SAFEGUARDS PRINCIPLE: Individually identifiable health information should be protected with reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to ensure its confidentiality, integrity, and availability and to prevent unauthorized or inappropriate access, use, or disclosure.

AND.....  there are very, very clear commentaries in several places that email is allowed under very specific situations.

AND... there are new cases of organizations (BA's and CE's) accidentally breaching PHI with email....  most of the time accidentally!

AND.... keep in mind that the annual max fines are between $25,000 and $1.5 Million dollars.   Not sure about you, but even getting slapped with a $25k fine would be enough to really irritate me.


So, if it's now cost-effective and technically simple to encrypt all PHI that may be transmitted via your email servers, would it' it seem reasonable?



Without hammering this point needlessly, I would suggest you look into how simple the solutions are for encrypting your clients' email.

While there are several great vendors on the market now, we sell and recommend the solutions from ZIXCORP.   They're the leaders in this industry, and we simply have not seen a cheaper, more flexible, more powerful solution on the market place.   Their basic ZixMail solution that will protect PHI and keep your email secure costs between $4 and $10 / user / month for most of our clients, depending on their size & specific needs.

From $4 to $10 / user / month.    And this issue is put to bed.

And you don't have to worry about your staff accidentally emailing out up to $1.5 MILLION worth of breaches.

Seems like a "reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards" to put in place to me.

Curious?   Want to see a demo?   Contact us at www.tkshealth.com or read more at www.zixcorp.com.


Monday, February 13, 2012

AAAAGGHHH!!! We're growing again!!!! (Are you coming to see us anytime soon???)

You heard it right!   

Turn Key Solutions is excited to announce that we just brought on board two additional technicians.    That's after screening almost 200 resumes, putting about 30 through basic screening, and more interviews that I want to admit.   We're picky - we looked long and hard for technicians with the skills to do the job, the heart to take care of clients, and the personality that will be a joy to work with.

But, the good news is that with these two new guys, we've added about 13 years of experience to our team, and they fit our culture and our client needs really well.

So, yes, as a small business owner, it's a little scary to add on staff.  But it was time - we've been working our technicians a little too hard for the last year, and we needed the extra capacity to meet the growth of projects our clients are firing up. 


Oh, and did I mention that we moved offices, for the first time in over 11 years?    Yup!   In the last 4 years we've gone from using 2500 square feet to now we have about 7500 square feet of office space.    The big upshot?   We are planning on using the new space to add some great services to our clients and community.   Already we've been able to host one neighborhood community event on-site, and we're working to be able to have an open house or two in the upcoming days.


Needless to say, we are thankful to be so blessed on so many fronts, and we really look forward to finding new and better ways to bless our community and our clients in 2012.


SO....   drop on by, meet our long-term and new staff, and come grow with us!

-Henry Overton





Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Here's what's big for TKS in 2012... (Subtitle: New Years' resolutions are stupid.)

Congratulations!  You've made it through the first month of 2012.


And, if you're like most people I know, you've quietly forgotten about most of your new years' resolutions.  (Quit eating greasy burgers in the car, stop watching Dancing with the Stars, etc, etc...)


If you're like a lot of small business owners I know, though, you're just getting started with your business goals.


Better yet, you may just be formalizing your goals for 2012.


At Turn Key Solutions & Turn Key Health, we're refining our business goals every day.   The most significant goals we've got all work to meet our new, refined vision statement:


Turn Key Solutions empowers businesses across the Gulf South region to focus on what they do best by providing technology teams and environments our clients can depend upon, grow with, and enjoy interacting with. 


We are passionate about providing the best solutions, excellent customer service, and overall excellent experiences for our customers EVERY DAY.



So this isn't quite as full of flair as the "Holstee Manifesto" but it captures everything we see in Jim Collin's "Good to Great" "Hedgehog Principle" -


1. What is Turn Key Solutions passionate about? - Harold Robinson and I (Henry Overton), as founders, really are passionate about technology.  We love it.  That's why our new office has thermostats with I.P. addresses.   It's why we actually enjoy reading the manuals for firewalls, operating systems, and our dvd players.


2. What can Turn Key Solutions be the best in the world at? -  I truly believe we can be best at these:


A. Custom crafting top-quality business technology solutions designed exactly, perfectly for our business partners (ie, clients) and


B. Providing an excellent customer service experience, every time.

3. What drives our economic engine?   Service, service, and more service.   Some specialized solutions do have better profit margins, yes, but it's been 15 years since any regional I.T. company made real money reselling computers.   




SO....  All that said, here goes our biggest goals for the year:


1. Provide excellent customer experiences, and excellent solutions, every time.   


              closely followed by...


2. Get the word out that we're doing this, and carefully grow our client base.


If you have any feedback already on how we're doing, PLEASE LET US KNOW!




So.... now that we've shown our cards, how are your goals coming for the year?