Sharp

Background

Sharp Community Medical Group is the largest independent physician association within San Diego County and one of the largest in California. Their network includes more than 200 primary care physicians and 500 specialists. With such a large network, it’s no small undertaking to monitor the HIPAA efforts of each member. David Porter, Project Manager for Sharp Community Medical Group, oversees member HIPAA programs. For a long time, he was tracking members’ HIPAA efforts on spreadsheets, which he found both difficult and time-consuming. In 2017, Sharp partnered with SecurityMetrics in an effort to save time and reach greater overall network-wide security.

“Because of SecurityMetrics’ Health Network Portal, HIPAA adoption has improved. Once our members get into their portal, they find that it’s easy enough to do. If it’s something they don’t want to do, at least it’s not something they dread now. they don’t pull out the wooden stake and silver cross when I show up at their door. The portal is much better than me hammering them with questions—it’s interactive. It creates a sense of ownership and engagement, which is not something we had before.”
David Porter
Project Manager, Sharp

HIPAA challenges you faced

• I had to create spreadsheets myself to track member HIPAA compliance.
• Our network is comprised of a lot of small practices, most of which don’t have an understanding of what is required of them under HIPAA regulations.
• These small practices can’t afford to implement all the technology that will adequately protect them—specifically, the trainings, perimeter scans, and security risk assessments.

Resolving Challenges With SecurityMetrics

• With SecurityMetrics’ Health Network Portal, I have an overview of where each organization stands. This allows me to create a plan for each member, so they know what they need to do. The portal gives me visibility without having to maintain spreadsheets, and it’s based on members’ actual progress and not on how well I think they’re following each requirement.
• SecurityMetrics provides our members with a step-by-step breach protection checklist. This checklist takes away the mystery and uncertainty of incident response.
• SecurityMetrics makes required technology more affordable and provides a one-stop shop that practices can go to for compliance and security. A lot of practices that might not have done their training adequately are now able to train their staff because it’s in the portal, along with the other tools.

Goals Achieved Working With SecurityMetrics

• SecurityMetrics has taken the “big event” reluctance out of HIPAA for our members.
• The level of effort required to follow HIPAA require-ments used to be so high that many of our members would give up. Now they can step through the requirements little by little, which has increased the adoption of our HIPAA program.