Registry improves account management process
Betts Ellis and Melissa Forinash co-chair the Integrated Account Management Steering Committee (IAMSC), which is overseeing and orchestrating the various projects involved in improving account management. To date the most visible project involves the termination of system access whenever students, employees, contractors, affiliates, or faculty end their formal relationship with MUSC. Everyone agrees that this is a sound and ethical business practice, but more recently the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) legislated that system access be controlled and terminated in a reasonable timeframe when the professional need for system access ends. HIPAA may be the best-known privacy/security legislation in the medical field, but there are other laws, rules, and policies that govern access to student, employee, and personal data with which the IAM must comply. To this end the System Registry, http://sysreg.musc.edu, was developed. At this URL one can register all systems that he/she is responsible for administering. Before deciding that a system “is not big enough” or “not important enough” to require registering, the guidelines found on the Web site should be reviewed. If there is a doubt, please register the system. “The information takes about five minutes per system to enter, as validated by pilot participants,” said Dan Furlong, CCIT special projects manager. Note that the login to the secure Web site requires a MUSC Network Account (MNA) and password—if you are unsure what an MNA is, visit http://www.musc.edu/ccit/mna for more information. To help you understand the registry, the Termination Task Force will hold Question and Answer sessions (including a demo) in training room 220 of the Clinical Sciences Building on: Tuesday, July 8, 9 to 10 a.m; Tuesday, July 15, 9 to 10 a.m.; and Monday, July 28, 9 to 10 a.m. The goal is to have all systems registered by Aug. 15. There is also a step-by-step illustration of how to fill out the requested information available as a link from the main Web page. To pilot the system, all CCIT administrators registered the systems they manage. Several other groups have since helped to expand the pilot, including pharmacy, lab, radiology, and UMA. Since about 200 systems have already been registered, Furlong encourages administrators to take a tour of the site and see how it works before registering their system since the system they plan to register may already be listed. Note that everyone is free to view the registry information for any system on campus. This registration process is the initial phase of what John Dell, CCIT chief technical officer, calls, “front-to-back processes that will help system administrators become informed when people sever their established relationship with MUSC. The registry’s function will later expand to notify administrators when people create new relationships at MUSC, like when a new employee is hired, and in what role the person will serve. It can also serve to let administrators know when people change roles at MUSC, such as moving from being a student to a nurse to a faculty member. “When role registry begins, we will have a method to determine what resources and accesses new people will need as soon as they get here,” Dell said. The termination e-mail list is currently being piloted with University HR, Authority HR, UMA HR, Provost Office (faculty), and MUSC Enrollment Services (students) participating as sources of defined people. Within 60 days e-mail termination lists will be sent to those responsible for administering each registered system that controls user access, and until then registered administrators will receive updates on how the pilot is progressing. Please be aware that for those who are responsible for a computer system
that allows others access to MUSC data/information, they must register
their system by Aug. 15. This requirement was recommended by the IAMSC
and was then endorsed by MUSC’s Information Management Council (IMC) on
June 17. Everyone’s participation and cooperation is appreciated, as this
policy must be enforced in order to protect the patients, students, employees,
and assets of MUSC and South Carolina.
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