We are no stranger to the regulatory issues that can crop up when setting up an employee, or your whole workforce, to work remotely. We have helped many of our clients navigate similar waters. With that in mind, we have compiled our top three tips for healthcare companies trying to maintain HIPAA compliance with a remote workforce:

Encourage employees to set up workspaces apart from other family members whenever possible.

The number one goal of HIPAA is to protect patients’ PHI (Protected Health Information) and ePHI. In the workplace, you as an employer are able to maintain a certain level of control over who accesses what PHI. Now that employees are working from home along with all of their family members and/or roommates, it is harder to maintain control over who is seeing what. Now is a great time to send a reminder to employees that stresses the importance of maintaining a workspace where they are able to protect patients’ PHI and ensure they are the only ones able to see it.

Make online HIPAA refresher courses available to employees.

There is no better time like the present to give employees access to continuing education courses that reinforce HIPAA knowledge and best practices. Microsoft SharePoint is a great platform for making training videos available to employees working remotely, as well as any other HIPAA training materials you would like them to have access to, as a refresher.

Ensure you have a BAA (Business Associate Agreement) signed with any software vendors whose product you are using to communicate PHI.

There are a variety of software solutions available that can help you and your employees maintain connectivity right now, including Microsoft Teams. It is important, however, to note that any vendor that has access to PHI is considered a business associate and you must have a signed business associate agreement (BAA) with them for communication through that software to be considered HIPAA-compliant.

It is important to note that not all software solutions for healthcare communication are equal. Microsoft Teams is listed in Microsoft’s Tier D compliance category, meaning that all of the innovative security controls are automatically activated and it meets the standards required by HIPAA. We can show you all the ways that Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Office 365 can help your employees maintain HIPPA compliance while working remotely.

If you or your company need assistance with managing regulatory compliance while working remotely contact our team of experts to get a plan in place to manage your business responsibly.

The post 3 Tips for Maintaining Regulatory Compliance While Working Remotely appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

Azure’s home page

Microsoft just simplified it to make it more focused on user experience – your user experience. Recent programs now auto-populate at you use the product, so there’s no set list of features decided by Microsoft – it’s all based on what you use the most often. It gets better and more customized the more you use it, and you don’t even have to be proactive about organizing it, it’s all done for you. And at the same time, there’s a static set of resources on the bottom part of the home page, for consistency.

Service information cards

These are the boxes that show up when you hover your cursor over something. For example, when you hover over someone’s name in Outlook – without clicking – it shows you their name/email/position/your latest correspondence with them. Think that same idea, but with your resources in Azure, giving you quick access to common tasks and relevant in-context information.

Global portal search

Azure’s search function is now streamlined, so you can be sure you never lose progress in a task. It allows you to search across all your lists of services, all the instances of your services, offers in the marketplace, documentation and research groups. And no matter where you are in Azure, the global search bar is always right there at the top.

Easy navigation between multiple accounts

All with just one click. Many Azure users have multiple accounts, whether it be a work account and a personal account – or more if you’re contracted. But you can now instantly switch between the two, while the two stay tailored to what you do in each separate account.

Utilizing patterns

Azure can do. A. Lot. But to keep things from getting overwhelming, if you just learn a few basic rules, you can apply them across all of Azure.

Streamlined browsing

It’s now faster and “way more functional,” according to Leon Welicki, Partner Group PM Manager, who delivered this presentation on Azure at Ignite. All your instances are in one place, and now, you can customize what that looks like by easily adding instances right to your list and adjusting the columns as you see fit. You can also quickly export anything you see on your screen. When it comes to filtering and sorting – there are no catches. You know how sometimes you’re in a piece of software and you KNOW what you’re looking for is there but can’t find it? The new browsing system uses more than just basic keywords to help you easily pinpoint the resources you’re looking for

Resource graph explorer

A more advanced tool, this gives you full control of all your Azure data, your subscriptions, resources, etc. Azure offers a fully integrated user experience to let you access the graph explorer right inside the portal. When you find relevant data, you can export it, share it, or pin it for future use.

Create your own dashboards

You can create private dashboards that you can either use for your own functionality or share with others. And you can make/use multiple at one time.

The post How Microsoft is making sure you get more out of Azure appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.