MARIETTA, GA – A recent test of standards to determine banks’ compliance with privacy and security safeguards has been effective, and the organization developing those standards now seeks to give them a broader audience.
The pilot test of the survey, conducted over a couple of days at The Bank of New York Mellon in Pittsburgh, received generally high marks from those at the financial institution that took part.
The effort, launched by the Medical Banking Project 15 months ago, seeks to create a “Gold Seal Standard” for health data privacy and security accreditation for medical banking constituents.
Developed by an accreditation review council, the standards are intended to assure public trust in banks as participants in the healthcare transaction system, said Ken Kubala, senior vice president and new business development manager for the Bank of New York Mellon.
The organization wants to demonstrate that it can be self-governing and show that financial institutions can be surveyed to determine whether they adhere to credible privacy and security standards and compliance with federal security standards.
The process for achieving “gold standard” compliance uses an Internet-based survey developed by Milliman Inc., said John Phelan, a Westlake Village, Calif.-based healthcare management and HIPAA consultant for Milliman.
The survey assesses organizations’ readiness to meet privacy and security standards in 24 areas, ranging from computer room physical security to wireless network security, Kubala said.
When surveyed, participants in the pilot test universally agreed that all questions asked were relevant to a financial institution and that the Web-based questions were generally easy to understand. Some 80 percent said the process did or would identify gaps in policies and procedures.
The organization hopes to fine-tune its survey and develop an outreach effort to promote other organizations to seek accreditation.