In April 2003 the privacy protection provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) came into effect, requiring health care organizations to protect their patients' medical records and other health information. Whilst the Privacy Rule allows health care providers to share protected health information for treatment purposes by email, it does require covered entities to use reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards to prevent intentional and unintentional disclosure of protected health information. This means that when using email, health care providers must have an email filtering system in place that can protect the confidentiality of information being sent within the organization, as well as outside the organization.

Policy Patrol is one of the few email filtering solutions that can filter internal (if installed on Exchange Server 2000 or Exchange Server 2003) as well as external emails, therefore offering a complete email filtering solution. Policy Patrol can help health care providers comply with the HIPAA Privacy rule in the following ways:

• Block any unauthorized confidential data leaving the organization by making use of keyword filtering and attachment checking.
• Use Bayesian filtering techniques to identify confidential content as opposed to non-confidential content.
• Add a disclaimer to messages reminding the recipient of the confidential nature of the email and warning against unauthorized disclosure.
• Archive all messages to provide a central record of email communications.
• Stop viruses from entering (or leaving) the organization via email and compromising security.
• Provide reports on policy breaches and attachment usage.
• Limit the domains users can send emails to by creating email filters.
• Advanced user permissions ensure that confidential messages are not viewed by the wrong employees.
• Notification emails and network messages inform managers in case of policy breaches.

Apart from helping health care providers comply with HIPAA, Policy Patrol also offers benefits such as improved employee productivity and decreased legal liability. In addition, Policy Patrol offers an instant return on investment by saving bandwidth, avoiding network congestion and reducing storage space requirements.

Policy Patrol health care customers
Policy Patrol is used by many health care institutions including Medica HealthCare Plans, Carter Healthcare, Oklahoma Health Care Authority, Boston Medical Center Corporation, Florida Heart Associates, Hospice of Marion County, New England Home Care and many more.

Why not try it out now? Download a free 30-day evaluation version and see how valuable Policy Patrol can be to your organization.