Progress Is Slow on HIPAA Security Rules.

This article reports that many health care companies are not still fully compliant with the data security rules mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S. Information technology (IT) managers and analysts said that technology, process, and budgetary issues continue to delay compliance efforts, along with what is seen as a weak enforcement component that has many health care organizations feeling that they can take a wait-and-see attitude toward the rules. In addition, HIPAA requires that people with access to protected health information be uniquely identified to an IT system each time they use it. But this capability can be difficult to implement efficiently, especially in busy areas such as hospital emergency rooms.