HIPAA

The Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) imposes two important requirements for IT. The first requires applications that manage unstructured data, such as document management systems, need to apply medical condition codes to any content that describes medical conditions. The second requires that patient medical data remain private. At the same time, patients must have unrestricted access to their own medical information.

Customers can immediately benefit from using Xythos by:

  • Applying Correct Medical Codes to Documents: Xythos provides custom metadata features that let users place standard HIPAA codes on any document. This custom metadata can be seen when viewing the document, or when searching for all documents to which that code has been applied. In addition to medical codes, Xythos allows any number of custom metadata fields to be added to a document, including fields such as patient name or birth date.
  • Ensuring the Security of Patient Data: Xythos offers file-level security for all content types, helping to maintain tight control over which users have access and permissions within the same system. Xythos also provides auditing features that can track all activity associated with a document. This includes user IDs or IP addresses used to access information as well as date and time stamp logs allowing doctors and patients to see who has accessed specific records and at what time. To release information to another user, who does not have an account on the system, Xythos provides the ability to send secure links to a file or document. For example, when a doctor releases patient information to an insurance provider, instead of sending a risky email attachment, he can send a password protected link to the patient’s file on Xythos.
  • Applying Consistent Condition Codes and Policies: The Xythos platform integrates with important components of an organization’s IT infrastructure, such as the LDAP service. Xythos’ Java-based APIs also make it easy ot integrate with other enterprise applications, such as patient tracking systems, helping organizations to enforce consistent coding and policies.