Finger on the Pulse
Sun task force to help companies prepare for the new healthcare law.
When the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was signed into law
in 1996, according to published documents the law was comprised of two major legislative
actions: health insurance reform and administrative simplification.
Now, with the law beginning to go into effect, healthcare businesses are scrambling to
update their legacy computer systems, beef up their technical security capabilities, and
define and implement the business processes required to comply with the new regulations.
Sun's Solaris Operating Environment, combined with
enterprise-class hardware and third-party or homegrown business applications for
everything from claims processing to clinical information systems will provide
healthcare businesses with the solutions and scalability they'll need to succeed in an
increasingly competitive market.
As patients demand access to personal health information and higher levels of service,
healthcare networks must be able to handle increasing volumes of data and deliver
quality information anytime, anywhere to any device. Sun will become the clear partner
of choice to build the secure, scalable networks which the healthcare industry will
demand.
Sun Gets Involved
Sun Microsystems has established a task force to coordinate the definition of
solutions for healthcare clients seeking to achieve HIPAA compliance.
"We've assembled a powerful team of highly experienced individuals from all the
pertinent areas across the company," said Mike Haymaker, healthcare global sales
development manager at Sun Microsystems and leader of Sun's HIPAA task force. "Clearly,
Sun has the technology along with the technical expertise and experience required to
help our clients address HIPAA. It's been a matter packaging it appropriately into
solutions that the healthcare industry can use."
Sun has a proven track record of deploying scalable, reliable and secure technology
systems for businesses that operate in compliance with government regulation, making Sun
uniquely positioned to help companies prepare for the new law. Sun's network computing
model has been proven to operate efficiently and securely under diverse market
pressures.
HIPAA Legislation
HIPAA is expected to go into effect in early 2001, after the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services finalizes the privacy and security regulations that
will govern how companies exchange electronic data about patient services and
billing records. Analysts warn that, even with 24 months to comply with the law,
many health care businesses may be scrambling to get their computing systems up
and running in time.
HIPAA has the potential to help the healthcare industry eliminate billions of
dollars each year in administrative waste. Its privacy requirement is just the
"toll" that healthcare companies have to pay to be able to participate in those
savings.
"Achieving HIPAA security compliance requires a common-sense approach in order
to define the appropriate type of solution for a company," said Ed Glover,
enterprise security director of Sun Professional Services. "Once recommendations have
been made, we can provide the implemention services for our client's unique solution."
"HIPAA doesn't appear to be asking for anything new or even particularly challenging in
the area of technical security. The requirements seem to be similar to what we've been
doing for years in the areas of banking and securities," said Vic Winkler a Sun
security expert in Global Sales Business Strategy and the technical security
expert on the HIPAA task force. "Sun Microsystems has pioneered some technologies that
offer advantages in migrating customer legacy stovepiped systems into secure
network-centric, services-based solutions. These may be of particular interest to
healthcare organizations."
Power in Numbers
In order to round out Sun's security offerings, Sun's healthcare market development team
has been actively signing up best-of-breed ISV partners offering security solutions,
such as public key infrastructure (PKI) and access control.
"We are really excited about the high-quality names we're partnering with around
healthcare solutions," said Travis Hatmaker, healthcare market development manager for
Sun Microsystems and member of the HIPAA task force. "Their solution sets, leveraging
Sun products andservices, can help meet the healthcare industry's new technology needs."
HIPAA is not just impacting the commercial sector of the healthcare market. HIPAA's
current sweeping requirements will have impact in Sun Federal's healthcare business as
well.
"Sun's technology, services and strong ISV partnerships position us well to help our
customers meet new technology requirements and also enable us to become a better partner
as government agencies move to Web-enable their services," said HIPAA task force member
Rebecca Chisolm, manager of Civilian Government Business Development for Sun Federal.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
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