Providers hoping to improve the quality of their health care delivery practices while sustaining viable businesses face a slew of new federal mandates and incentives to reach their goals. One of the most significant issues health care organizations must navigate is the security of patient data.

With the release of proposed rules to enforce the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), compliance with privacy and security requirements under federal laws just became a little more complex. While privacy controls have always been required under that law, it wasn’t until the signing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in the 2009 stimulus law that policymakers added enforcement strength for HIPAA.