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FOURTHOUGHTGROUP uses FacilitatePro to assess HIPAA
compliance
The Challenge
FOURTHOUGHTGROUP is a full service
consulting organization specializing in Healthcare Information
Systems. With an unparalleled track record in the industry,
primarily driven by client success, FOURTHOUGHTGROUP
is always looking for the best ways to serve their clients.
In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), having to
do with how health care information is to be handled
electronically - rules for sending and receiving data
and how that data must be secured. All health care organizations
must be in compliance by April of 2003, or they cannot
perform any work processes electronically (all correspondence
is required to revert back to paper). FOURTHOUGHTGROUP
had several contracts with government agencies that
needed to do a full assessment of their exposure.
The Choice
FOURTHOUGHTGROUP needed a solution
that offered both the options of hosting an online survey
or information gathering session internally and having
the vendor host it. The ability to hold either local
or distributed meetings was also essential. On the functionality
side, they needed powerful yet easy-to-use balloting
and the capability to dynamically categorize ideas as
they were generated. Finally, they needed to hold multiple
meetings simultaneously. FacilitatePro not only
met these requirements, but also fell well within their
target price range.
The Solution
FOURTHOUGHTGROUP has used FacilitatePro
to perform topical brainstorming as well as to run
agency-wide
surveys for their clients. These surveys gather data
from up to 3000 people per agency to determine what
sorts of information are being handled electronically
and what policies and procedures are in place, in
order
to compare the current state against the requirements
of new law.
In order to successfully complete these compliance
assessments for their clients within 30 days, the
consultants at
FOURTHOUGHTGROUP must quickly assemble client teams
of forty people for short periods of time. Once they
have identified who needs to be involved in an assessment,
the FOURTHOUGHTGROUP uses FacilitatePro's brainstorming
tool to build the appropriate survey covering all the
categories and topics necessary for compliance, and
then runs the survey either in a session at their office
or on the intranet of their client. Armed with this
data, already in electronic format, the experts at
FOURTHOUGHTGROUP sort the gathered data into compliance
categories, and
make recommendations and action plans based on the
identified gaps in the policies and procedures of
their clients.
The Results
Many of FOURTHOUGHTGROUP's clients
are still forging their way to the April 2003 deadline,
but they are doing so armed with a clear understanding
of where they are, and what they need to do to achieve
compliance, thanks to the teamwork of the experts at
FOURTHOUGHTGROUP and the support of Facilitate.com.
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