HIPAA compliance poses challenges for large governmental and public-private entities, as some parts of the organizations are covered while others are not. This has become especially true as information systems are linked together, breaking down traditional barriers.

That’s the word from Tina Curtis, city-wide privacy and security official in the District of Columbia, who spoke at the 2020 HIPAA Summit in Washington, D.C.

“In government, we are charged with delivering a multitude of services,” Curtis said.

“Examples of those services range from public safety, revenue management, [and] the regulation of banking and insurance to education and health and human services. We’ve moved from siloed paper-based agencies to those who have created pretty respectable data sets which are digitized and linked, and can also be used to predict human behavior and help us with decisions.”

Therefore, state and local government has become “big data,” she said. “Many of the agencies that create this data have different compliance standards.” There’s also a growing interest in transparency in government, she noted, and it’s in this environment that privacy and security officers must ensure their governments comply with HIPAA.