The traditional route to HIPAA compliance is full of repetitive and time-consuming manual tasks: completing a risk assessment and gap analysis, designing and implementing security and privacy safeguards, training staff, writing policies and business associate agreements, and much more. And you'd have to track everything in spreadsheets and organize compliance evidence. 

Achieving and maintaining HIPAA compliance takes a dedicated team of compliance officers and company leaders, and possibly hiring expensive HIPAA consultants to assist you. 

Security and privacy compliance automation software eliminates a significant amount of these manual tasks, saving your organization hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on policy creation, external security training, and consultant fees. Below, we’ll explain what compliance automation software does and share tips for deciding if it’s the right choice for your healthcare organization.

What is HIPAA compliance automation?

HIPAA automation software simplifies and streamlines the compliance process by giving healthcare organizations a single tool to monitor and manage their compliance efforts. Training and tracking employee security training, managing vendors and business associate agreements, automatically collecting compliance evidence, and continuously monitoring security controls in one platform gives companies real-time insights into their compliance status. 

Here are some other powerful benefits of HIPAA compliance software:

Offers assurance of continuous compliance

Compliance automation platforms integrate with your existing tech stack to continuously monitor and collect evidence on your administrative and technical safeguards for protecting ePHI. You’ll be able to get an accurate, real-time picture into your compliance status and monitor for non-compliance. And our internal HIPAA compliance experts will share personalized guidance based on your unique systems and business needs. They’ll be there at every step of the compliance journey, from understanding legal requirements and implementing safeguards to keeping your entire security and privacy program running smoothly. 

Streamlines policy creation

Instead of writing all of your own HIPAA policies from scratch, the best security and privacy compliance automation platforms offer a library of auditor-approved policy templates that you can customize to the needs of your healthcare organization. 

Makes it easier to maintain compliance

Secureframe can automatically collect evidence for your surveillance and recertification audits. And because our software continuously monitors your tech stack, you'll be able fix issues quickly and proactively instead of scrambling in the weeks before an auditor shows up at your door.

Simplifies compliance across frameworks

HIPAA compliance often overlaps with other security frameworks such as SOC 2 and HITRUST.  

Instead of starting from ground zero, compliance software can help map what you’ve already done to achieve compliance with HIPAA to other information security frameworks. It'll be faster and easier to achieve additional certifications and avoid duplicated efforts.

While HIPAA automation software can be incredibly beneficial, it’s important to avoid over-reliance on a tool. HIPAA compliance officers and other stakeholders must continue to prioritize a strong data security and privacy strategy, own risk and change management processes, and understand how HIPAA safeguards are implemented and maintained. Use the software to automate tedious and time-consuming tasks like policy creation, security training, evidence collection, and vendor risk management.

How to Choose a Compliance Automation Platform

The security, privacy, and compliance software landscape is a fast-growing space, with a growing number of vendors to choose from. Keep these questions in mind as you evaluate potential solutions to help decide which is the best fit for your organization: 

• Are your chosen security frameworks supported? Be sure to consider any you may need as your company grows.
• Is the number and depth of integrations enough to save your team from repetitive manual work?
• Does the platform include data security and privacy training, or will you need to pay for another external vendor?
• What is the level of customer support? What channels are available to receive support?

Key Features of Compliance Automation Software

Automated Evidence Collection

Eliminating tedious, manual tasks is one of the core advantages of HIPAA compliance software. Look for a tool that includes a wide range of integrations that automatically collect evidence to support your compliance posture.

Vendor and Business Associate Management

Managing business associate and vendor risk can be incredibly complicated. Choosing a tool that collects all of your business associate agreements in one spot simplifies the entire process. 

Policy Library

If you don’t already have a set of HIPAA policies in place, weeding through legal jargon to write them all from scratch can be time-consuming and stressful. Many HIPAA compliance solutions offer a library of templated policies that are approved by a team of HIPAA experts, making it much easier and faster to build out your policies and ensure they’re compliant with the law.

Employee Onboarding and Offboarding

Keeping your team up-to-date on your HIPAA policies and procedures is an essential part of achieving and maintaining compliance. Compliance automation software can verify that every member of your staff completes regular security training and policy reviews. When you need to revoke access for former employees, the software can make that easy, too.