Strengthen Security and HIPAA Compliance with Blumira Solutions

Healthcare organizations take heed – there was a 264% increase in ransomware attacks in 2024, which led to heavier enforcement of ransomware incidents by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights (OCR), according to Reuters.

The OCR has also launched an initiative that focuses on the stricter enforcement of a thorough evaluation of potential security risks, known as the required periodic security risk analysis. This risk analysis helps ensure you’re compliant with HIPAA’s safeguards and that patient data is protected.

To help small and medium-sized businesses with conducting SRAs, there are a few SRA tools available. One walks you through different questions you'll need to be able to answer, with supporting information on what to do in order to strengthen your security posture and better meet compliance requirements. Some of the questions include:

• What mechanisms are in place to monitor or log system activity?
• How do you monitor or track ePHI system activity?
• How does your practice prevent, detect, and respond to security incidents? 

Various proposed changes to the HIPAA Security Rule focus on modernization to update technical requirements around encryption, multi-factor authentication, penetration testing, and social engineering training and awareness.

The addition of these requirements would be costly and burdensome, especially for smaller medical and healthcare businesses, according to Reuters. 

Positive Outcomes of Partnering with Blumira for Operational Resilience

Blumira can help healthcare organizations that need to secure patient data and meet HIPAA compliance, including:

• Section 164.308(a)(1)(ii)(D) – Information system activity review (required). Implement procedures to regularly review records of information system activity, such as audit logs, access reports, and security incident tracking reports.
• Section 164.312(b) – Audit controls. Implement hardware, software, and/or procedural mechanisms that record and examine activity in information systems that contain or use electronic protected health information.

Customer Story: Burcham Hills

Burcham Hills, a Life Plan Community, chose Blumira over Sophos and Splunk for the quality of support, ease of sales process and predictable pricing of its platform. They were up and running in less than two days with complete visibility into their cloud applications and Windows environment.

“Within less than two days, we were up and running,” Baker said. “Anything that could be vulnerable or exposed — I’ve got to find a way to get it integrated [with Blumira] so we can keep eyes on it and know what’s going on at all times.”

When Baker reached out to their endpoint security company, they didn’t receive the level of support they were expecting. With Blumira, he was able to work through subsequent security incidents they were alerted to with the help of Blumira’s responsive and hands-on technical account managers and security analyst team.

Better Outcomes With Blumira

To help healthcare organizations both strengthen their security posture and meet the requirements outlined in a HIPAA security risk analysis, partner with Blumira to achieve better outcomes:

1. Use the team you have today – Protect patient data and fulfill safeguards with your existing team, no need for specialized security expertise. Blumira provides automated continuous monitoring and audit controls you need to meet HIPAA requirements.
2. Save time, focus on staff support & patient care – Busy and overloaded health IT teams that support healthcare organizations don’t have time to monitor their security data or set up complex solutions to help meet compliance. Blumira’s easy-to-deploy solution can be set up quickly to achieve faster time to security while simplifying daily management.
3. Reduce risks to patient data & operational resilience – Strengthen operational resilience with continuous monitoring and ongoing sessions with Blumira’s team to identify areas to improve your security posture. Detect risks across your environment early and often to prevent exposure of patient data.

Focus on patient care while still maintaining the security your patients deserve. 

Learn more about Blumira’s commitment to helping healthcare organizations both to stay secure and achieve HIPAA compliance.