Software certification requirements under HIPAA

Software certification requirements under HIPAA

Is HIPAA going to require IT people to be certified in certain areas of software (for example, MCSE or CCA) if they use that software at their site for security reasons?

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The proposed HIPAA security rule as it currently stands does not require any sort of IT personnel certifications, and I can't imagine the final security rule requiring it either. There is, however, a requirement that "technical maintenance personnel" are trained in system security. Perhaps this will be clarified in the final rule. Either way, it's a best practice to ensure that all IT personnel are trained on current and new operating systems, applications and security. Certification could be seen as a side-benefit of that.


For more information on this topic, visit these other SearchSecurity.com resources:
Ask the Expert: HIPAA training certificates
Careers and Certification Tip: The vendor-neutral security certification landscape
Careers and Certification Tip: Survey of vendor-specific security certs


This was first published in January 2003