Krishna Kurapati

Founder & CEO

Founder & CEO of QliqSOFT. Building healthcare communication solutions for 12+ years. Focused on closing gaps in care through technology that enhances human connection.

58 articles published

Articles by Krishna Kurapati

hipaa compliance audit program|hipaa audit program and risk assessments

Best Practices

The HIPAA Audit Program, Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, we examined the purpose and general background of the HIPAA Audit Program. In this second part of the series, we will take an in-depth look into the HIPAA Audit findings to see what issues are tripping up providers the most. Remember: while the pilot phase of the program was intended to be educational, OCR has stated that future violations can and will be accompanied by sanctions, up to and including civil monetary penalties.

3 min read

8 months ago

Best Practices

The HIPAA Audit Program, Part 3

In Part 2 of this three-part series, we took a deep look into the preliminary HIPAA Audit findings and observed the most common infractions identified by OCR. Specifically, security gaps accounted for the majority of results, with the lack of risk assessments and inadequate mobile device security being two of the most cited weaknesses. Fortunately for those selected in the 2012 pilot phase of the audits, OCR was primarily focused on using the exercise to educate covered entities of serious HIPAA issues.

3 min read

8 months ago

role of communication in healthcare|secure messaging in current healthcare facilities

Best Practices

The Role of Communication in a New Healthcare World

Under the existing yet flawed fee for service provider reimbursement model that has dominated medicine for the last couple of decades, providers have had little financial incentive to engage in a dialogue with a patient outside of an office visit.

4 min read

8 months ago

role of peer to peer encryption in the hipaa omnibus era|peer-to-peer encryption in healthcare

Best Practices

The Role of Peer-to-Peer Encryption in the HIPAA Omnibus Era

It’s every compliance officer’s worst nightmare. You’re sitting at your desk on a weekday afternoon, perhaps catching up on the latest posts on the qliqSOFT blog, when all of a sudden your CIO calls you up and frantically explains how one of your vendors suffered a major data breach. Over thirty thousand patient records are lost, and there is no way to know what has been done with the data so far.

3 min read

8 months ago

true cost of hipaa data breach|cost of a hipaa data breach

Best Practices

The True Cost of a HIPAA Data Breach

Another week, another HIPAA data breach. On September 10th, healthcare behemoth Kaiser Permanente sent out a letter to 670 patients, notifying them that their PHI had been impermissibly emailed out of network. But in light of all these recent data breaches and security failures, one might ask, “who cares?” If fixing the issue is as simple as writing an apology letter like Kaiser did, why go through all the hoops of encryption and access control and HIPAA compliance? After all, HHS still has the ultimate discretion of whether to assess penalties, right?

3 min read

8 months ago

Pharmacist talking to a patient while holding a tablet.

Specialty Pharmacy

Understanding the Top Challenges of Specialty Pharmacy Services

The journey of the specialty pharmacy patient is a complex and expensive process, as most any hub services participant knows. It starts when the patient is diagnosed with a life-changing chronic or complicated condition and the pharmacy receives the order for a specialty drug.

4 min read

8 months ago

Happy interaction between doctor and patient inside of clinic.

Patient Engagement

Want to Improve Patient Engagement? Ditch the App, Other Barriers

Improving patient engagement in healthcare requires overcoming barriers like app downloads and poor user experience. By adopting staff-to-patient texting and proactive chatbot interactions, providers can enhance patient involvement and overcome the limitations of traditional patient portals. Personalized communication, simplified access, and convenient engagement methods help build stronger provider-patient relationships and achieve higher adoption rates, ultimately benefiting healthcare organizations and patients alike.

8 min read

8 months ago

Secure Texting

What are the Essential Requirements of a Healthcare Secure Texting App?

At qliqSOFT we are always engaging in an open dialogue with industry experts and customers to discover new ways in which qliqCONNECT can help providers send secure communications in an increasingly unsecured world. To better get an idea of some current trends, we recently polled members in a HIMSS group LinkedIn discussion to discuss the essential “wish list” of health IT experts.

3 min read

8 months ago

Mother Carrying Baby Accessing Telehealth via Phone

Workforce

Why Digital Health Is a Win-win for Patients and Providers

Today’s frontline healthcare workers have expressed exhaustion and burnout from unmanageable patient workloads due to COVID, flu, and other surges, with many simply calling it quits.

3 min read

8 months ago

hipaa violations in small healthcare practices|

Best Practices

Why Risk HIPAA Violation for Texting, When Compliance is Free?

HIPAA violations, the bane of Healthcare IT specialists around the country, are a large problem for many doctors, nurses, and healthcare administrators. Physicians find it easy to communicate with texting, but the vulnerability of these platforms and the sensitive nature of the data they are communicating, make it a bad solution.

3 min read

8 months ago