A roadmap for information security assessment for meaningful use

This research responds to the urgent need for a comprehensive guide for healthcare providers to assess their organization´s information security policy and procedures in order to provide attestation for the Department of Health and Human Services´ Meaningful Use objectives. Healthcare providers have numerous legal, financial, and ethical motivations to safeguard their patient´s data and are expending considerable resources in this pursuit. Unfortunately most healthcare providers do not have the adequate tools or training to verify their organization´s practices are actually compliant with federal guidelines. To this effect the proposed research lays out a comprehensive and homogeneous approach for evaluating the security policies and practices within a computing environment. To solidify the effectiveness of our proposed research, the assessment plan and testing tools have been evaluated in a real-world HIMSS Stage 6 healthcare organization.