3i International
A Powerful Synthesis of Security and Compliance

"Regulatory Compliance and Security”— these two aspects have fast climbed up the healthcare agenda to take their place among the key levers of success and growth. While organizations focus more either on the “compliance” or the “security” demands, the writing is on the wall for such organizations in the form of hefty fines and data breaches. The reason? The lack of a basic understanding of security and compliance. “Far too often misunderstood and misused, security and compliance work hand-in-hand to protect the organizations from data breaches and government fines. However, not many understand the important distinction between them,” begins Mark Elliott, Co-Founder and CEO, 3i International. With over 25 years of experience in helping businesses overcome the ever-changing technology challenges, Elliott, well-versed in security and HIPAA compliance, is committed to safeguarding organizations from invasions while simultaneously meeting regulatory compliance.

To put things in perspective, Elliott explains, “An organization can hire the top security expert in the country to come into their offices and install the most advanced security measures on the market today. However, if that organization isn’t doing anything to address compliance, they would very likely fail an OCR audit.”

In contrast, some organizations recruit a HIPAA compliance consultant to ensure that they are fully compliant; however, they lack the security measures in place and face a serious risk of exposure. Evidently, to protect health data, organizations need to use compliance and security in synthesis with each other.” Governed by this mission, Elliott leads his team at 3i International to help healthcare organizations maintain optimum security and compliance with its broad range of services.

Keeping up with the compliance demands of HIPAA/HITECH and PCI, 3i empowers organizations with a suite of tools that address security and compliance. From the next-generation firewall, mobile security, spam, and web filters, multi-factor authentication, and email encryption to business continuity, backup solutions, zero trust networks with software-defined perimeter 3i covers it all. Considering end-user training as an essential element, the company offers both security-focused and role-based training and then wraps it with a team of HIPAA experts, which helps to inform their clients about everything under federal regulations.

The 3i team of experts in systems, processes, and architecture draws on its rich experience and expertise in HIPAA to help protect businesses, secure their data, and maintain their daily operations with a cloud-based compliance solution. The intelligent and highly cost-effective HIPAA compliance platform not only safeguards sensitive information from the full range of cyber threats but also addresses every aspect of HIPAA compliance under the law. “Besides, we have a proven process and our proprietary Achieve, Illustrate and Maintain methodology that we use alongside a dedicated compliance coach to help meet the HIPAA and HITECH compliance requirements,” Elliott adds. The solution allows seamless documentation in case users undergo an OCR HIPAA audit.

A typical client engagement at 3i begins with a thorough HIPAA security risk assessment, whereby the 3i team assesses the current environment of the client organization and identifies the gaps in compliance that need to be fixed and improved. 3i works with large enterprises in a co-managed IT security support relationship, wherein it partners with the internal IT team and supports them incessantly, identifies and solves the deficits to mitigate risks. On the other hand, the company effectively implements its own proven process based on the Six Sigma methodology, consequently providing holistic support to smaller healthcare covered entities that do not have access to an in-house IT team. Elliott explains, “We empower organizations to have a greater understanding of compliance with our tools running around the clock and monitoring several aspects for improvement. This allows healthcare professionals to focus on their core competencies of healing patients and improving the community of care.”

Experiencing steady growth, Elliott believes the greatest success for the company lies in its capability to provide continuous support to healthcare providers. “As passionate problem solvers we wish to continue collaborating with the healthcare organizations and provide them with a holistic approach to security and compliance,” concludes Elliott.