A Survey of Security Standards Applicable to Health Information Systems

Abstract

The information maintained by Health Information Systems (HIS) is often faced with security threats from a wide range of sources. Some government's regulations require healthcare organizations and custodians of personal health information to take practical steps to address the security and privacy needs of personal health information. Standards help to ensure an adequate level of security is attained, resources are used efficiently and the best security practices are adopted. In this paper, the authors survey security standards applicable to healthcare industry including Control OBjective for Information and related Technology (COBIT), ISO/IEC 27002:2005, ISO/IEC 27001:2005, NIST Special Publication 800-53, ISO 27799:2008, HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF), ISO 17090:2008, ISO/TS 25237:2008, etc. This survey informs the audience currently available standards that can guide the implementation of information security programs in healthcare organizations, and provides a starting point for IT management in healthcare organizations to select a standard suitable for their organizations.