7.5 IDENTIFYING THE EXISTING TOOLS

7.5 IDENTIFYING THE EXISTING TOOLS

Now that the goals have been defined, time is well spent in identifying what tools currently exist that might achieve the goals or could be slightly altered in order to meet the goals without excessive costs. This task item is primarily aimed at the third 'rule to work by'. By taking into consideration existing infrastructure, it's likely that the overall cost of implementation will be reduced and the managers responsible for approving the HIPAA budget will feel more comfortable that some thought has been put into how previous purchases can be leveraged to achieve your compliance goals.