HIPAA
HIPAA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, enacted by the United States Congress in 1996. It requires the implementation of standards for patient privacy and access to their patient health information, and it defines a wide range of covered entities to whom the act applies.
These covered entities, which include hospitals, clinics, HMOs, doctors, and dentists, are required to implement systems to control and monitor access to patient health information. Many of these entities store patient health information on Windows file shares. Monitoring access with native Windows logging tools has significant disadvantages:
- Server performance is severely affected when logging is enabled.
- It is difficult to get a single view of all file share activity because each server is monitored individually, even when the logs are centralized.
- Users with Administrator permissions can access patient health information and then erase records of their activity from the event log.
Windows File Share Monitor logs and records all activity on your Windows file shares by analyzing the traffic flowing across your network, and it stores the results in a standalone secure database. This approach allows you to implement a comprehensive auditing solution that will monitor all access to patient health information, with no performance penalty. At the same time, it gives a simple and effective way to implement separation of duties, which is a key audit requirement.
Find out more
If you have any questions about how Windows File Share Monitor can help you with your network monitoring requirements, please contact us. If you would like to see Windows File Share Monitor in action, please try our online demo system. or download a free 30-day trial to try it on your own network with your own data.