HIPAA for Rural Health Initiatives

The North Country Initiative (NCI) is a partnership of hospitals, independent physicians, and community providers working together to provide health care and related services to Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties in upstate New York.

Chris Grieco, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Fort Drum Regional Health Planning Organization coordinated with other members of NCI in an attempt to find a HIPAA compliance solution that could be implemented throughout their member organizations. “NCI is made up of a diverse group of health care providers and community-based organizations. We needed a HIPAA compliance solution that could work for all of our sites across three counties. We turned to The Guard, hoping to find a rightsized solution to accommodate our needs and ensure our partners have the resources they need, to be HIPAA compliant.”

How The Guard Resolved the Challenge

NCI partnered with Compliancy Group to implement The Guard HIPAA compliance solution at member sites that handle protected health information (PHI).

“Many of our members who are using The Guard are new to HIPAA compliance. They’re a combination of healthcare providers, public health organizations, and community organizations like prevention services, transportation services and emergency medical services whose main goal is to safely serve their communities,” said Grieco.

The Guard simplifies HIPAA compliance for users, regardless of whether they’re career compliance officers or just approaching HIPAA for the first time. Users develop a plan tailored to the needs of their organization, guided by Compliancy Group’s team of HIPAA experts all along the way.

By using The Guard, large partnerships and associations such as NCI can monitor and track the status of their compliance across all of their locations from one single HIPAA compliance solution. Each satellite site is assigned its own Compliance Coach to develop its own plan. Meanwhile, security, privacy, and compliance officials who oversee the entire organization can easily assess the status of their sites as they progress.

Specific Benefits or Impact

“We’re happy to know that our NCI members have a reliable resource that they can turn to for all their HIPAA concerns. Compliancy Group’s team of Compliance Coaches are an incredible value to our members throughout the implementation process–especially because some of them have never had experience with a HIPAA compliance program in the past.”

By partnering with Compliancy Group, NCI is now working to Achieve, Illustrate, and Maintain HIPAA compliance throughout its many member sites. Confident that privacy and security requirements of patient data are going to be met, Grieco and his team have found a total HIPAA solution in The Guard.