Consistent HIPAA security risk assessments are essential to maintaining compliance for your healthcare organization. It allows you to understand where protected health information (PHI) may be at risk.
HIPAA does require periodic risk assessments at least once per year. In addition to this, you must also have controls and governments in place to mitigate risks that you identify during your evaluation.
Let’s explore other factors that may affect the answer to the question of “How often should risk assessments be performed?”
How Often Should You Perform Risk Assessments?: What You Should Know
To ensure a safe medical workplace for staff and patients, risk assessments should be performed and reviewed as often as possible.
You should perform a risk assessment itself annually. However, when reviewing your risk assessment process, there is no official requirement. Still, there are some good rules of thumb to keep in mind.
Let’s discuss events or scenarios in which a risk assessment or risk assessment review should be done.
Prescheduled Annual Review
If a representative of the HSE audits you, they will demand that your records are up-to-date. This way you can keep track of when it was last performed and when it will be done next.
In the period leading up to this date, it’s best to start reviewing your processes, procedures, and data to make sure everything is compliant.
Legislation Changes
Be prepared to perform a risk assessment in response to any legislation changes. These regulations may be introduced on April 1 or October 1.
They could indicate updated research, a change in work practices, or even a global situation that requires extra caution.
Task Changes
Your medical workplace is always evolving. If changes occur to your site, information systems, equipment, or working practices, it can affect the health and safety of patients and their information.
Furthermore, the HSE dictates that any time new machines, procedures, or substances that could create new hazards are implemented, you should conduct a risk assessment. This extends to the installation, use, safety controls, machinery, and tasks.
Improvements
Occasionally you may want to improve your health and safety controls to actively mitigate risk. Once this is performed, a follow-up risk assessment is appropriate for that particular control.
Accidents
Near misses and accidents will occasionally occur. The most important thing is to ensure that you’re taking methods to prevent them from happening in the future.
You should review risk assessments following the HSE’s guidelines to ensure your controls are up to date. In addition, review our security risk assessment guide for further resources.
Reports Or Complaints
A member of the public, a patient, or an employee may notice an issue and bring it up. A fresh risk assessment is a good course of action to ensure transparency and resolution of these issues.
Streamline Your Risk Assessments
Using risk management software for healthcare can help you perform reviews and assessments with ease.
ComplyAssistant provides robust technology to ensure that you are well-prepared for the changing demands of the healthcare industry.
Reach out to us today for a free demo to understand how our software can help you minimize your risk and maintain compliance by identifying security gaps.