Breach Notification Rule
Requires notifying affected individuals, HHS, and in some cases the media following a breach of unsecured PHI.
HITECH
The HITECH Act strengthens HIPAA's rules around electronic health data and breach accountability. Cstream helps you get compliant quickly and easily, so you can prove your commitment to protecting patient data in a digital-first healthcare world.
What is it
If you're working toward HIPAA compliance, HITECH compliance comes with it. The HITECH Act promoted EHR adoption and strengthened HIPAA's privacy and security rules, particularly around breach notification and enforcement.
Requires notifying affected individuals, HHS, and in some cases the media following a breach of unsecured PHI.
Introduced tiered civil penalties based on the level of negligence, increasing the financial stakes of non-compliance.
Extended direct HIPAA/HITECH compliance liability to business associates, not only covered entities.
Introduced incentives, and later penalties, tied to the adoption of certified EHR technology.
How we help
Cstream takes the manual work out of HITECH compliance, helping teams protect patient data and stay prepared for audits, partner reviews, and breach response.
Cstream connects to your cloud, HR, and IT tools and pulls evidence for HITECH's technical and administrative safeguards automatically.
Detect controls drift early through continuous monitoring, rather than during a breach investigation or audit
Pre-built breach notification procedures and timelines aligned to HITECH's requirements, so you're not building a response plan under pressure.
See exactly what's missing against HIPAA/HITECH's combined requirements before an audit or partner review.
Pre-built, HITECH-aligned policy templates you can customize and roll out in minutes.
Manage and track BAAs with vendors and partners, since HITECH holds business associates directly liable.
Related frameworks
Cstream maps existing controls across HITECH, HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and other major frameworks, reducing duplicate compliance work.
Frequently asked questions
Anyone already subject to HIPAA, including covered entities and business associates. HITECH specifically extended direct liability to business associates, so vendors handling PHI can no longer rely on covered entities to absorb compliance risk.
HIPAA set the original privacy and security rules for PHI. HITECH strengthened those rules adding mandatory breach notification, tiered penalties, direct business associate liability, and incentives for EHR adoption.
Since HITECH builds on HIPAA, most companies already working toward HIPAA compliance can extend to HITECH in 12 weeks using Cstream.
Under HITECH's Breach Notification Rule, organizations are required to notify affected individuals, HHS, and in some cases the media within specific timeframes. Cstream helps organizations build breach response procedures ahead of time.
Penalties are tiered based on the level of negligence, ranging from lower fines for unknowing violations to significant penalties for willful neglect that is not corrected.
Compliance is not a one-time event. Controls, BAAs, and breach procedures require ongoing maintenance. Cstream continues monitoring your controls so you're always ready, not scrambling after an incident.
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