Discussion: Compliance and Governance Plans (150+150=300 words)

Compliance and Governance Plan for XMD

Recently we added a new business domain XMD (Xtreme Medical Doctor), in our existing Business XT (Xtreme Technologies: a digital marketing company). The XMD will be the healthcare division of Xtreme Technologies. This paper will cover compliance and governance plan for XMD. Compliance and governance complement each other, Governance metrics can be used to satisfy regulatory requirements, and similarly, compliance can provide metrics to improve business and cost. Each section of this paper will cover following.

· Privacy Issues of customers

· Intellectual Property and Health care division

· Healthcare laws and regulations, historical background, amendments, and implications of violations.

· Laws applied to XMD and the latest privacy challenges the pharmaceutical industry is going through. 

· Role of metrics in Compliance and Regulation

 

The goal and primary benefit of healthcare Governance & compliance are to improve the quality of patient care. XMD can improve it by making healthcare decisions based on appropriate and current clinical standards.  Compliance also helps healthcare organizations and providers avoid problems with government agencies. It is essential to minimize inadvertent violations at any level within the healthcare business. The entire healthcare organization needs to be cognizant of the general laws and regulations that define its operation. Within the organization, the specialists are responsible for their aspects. For example, IT needs to be aware of HITECH, HIPAA. Facility operations need to be aware of OSHA rules, local Govt, city, etc., codes. Medical billing, especially, must understand the proper usage of the CPT manual, and so on.

The healthcare industry is shifting its trend towards care delivery, research, and administrative functions in information technology. By these shifts, the IT environment in many healthcare organizations is evolving into a complex patchwork of applications, technologies, processes, and data types. Compliance and Governance are high on demand, and the top management takes decisions based on the data provided. COVID has impacted privacy worldwide; even countries with strict privacy laws like GDPR have also compromised personnel data to control the spread of disease. This paper will also emphasize how fragile our healthcare systems comply. Data breaches also increased in recent years, and COVID has allowed scammers to target systems/data via social engineering and malicious code. Cybersecurity for healthcare systems has grown exponentially; companies have to invest in cyberinfrastructure, training, and digitalizing of medical records. Governance and compliance can make tomorrow's healthcare solutions secure, trusted, and well-funded.      

For ensuring comprehensive compliance and governance to all health care standards, XMD must develop its own "Compliance Plan" based on the OIG recommendations. The "Compliance plan" should focus on risk areas and vulnerabilities that can identify problems and find solutions to those problems before government agencies get involved in it