As 2010 draws to a close, federal regulators have a long list of unfinished business in drafting regulations and launching programs to protect patient privacy and bolster information security, as mandated under the HITECH Act.
Not having an IT security certification doesn't disqualify you from getting that next job or promotion, but it could be a factor. Here are our picks of the five IT security certifications that will be most in demand in the new year.
Surescripts will serve as a certifier of e-prescribing, privacy and security modules of electronic health records for the HITECH Act
EHR incentive program.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology issues two special publications: SP 800-119, Guidelines for the Secure Deployment of IPv6 and SP 800-135, Recommendation for Application-Specific Key Derivation Functions.
The most important healthcare information security trend for the year ahead is the rush to implement electronic health records while taking advantage of all their security features, says Dixie Baker, a well-known security expert who's advising federal regulators on policy issues.
The federal list of major health information breaches has served as an eye-opener, making many healthcare organizations much more aware of their security risks.
Geisinger Health System has notified about 3,000 patients about a breach incident in which a physician inappropriately e-mailed unencrypted health information from his work computer to his home computer.
Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee Labs threat research vice president, discusses the company's annual threat predictions, saying: "We are seeing an escalating threat landscape in 2011."
A national model for state laws on patient privacy issues would play a key role in the success of health information exchanges, says Richard Gibson, M.D., who recently testified before Congress.
"The environment that started by supporting whistleblowers ... is essentially morphing into 'Gee, we as an organization need to be completely transparent, whether we want to or not,'" says Cal Slemp, managing director of Protiviti.
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