Health Care for the Homeless is growing by leaps and bounds. As we continue to grow, we’ll need to think about things we didn’t have to when we were much smaller and all under one roof. We’ll be rolling out a number of new IT policies over the next few weeks, beginning with a revamp on use of USB drives for agency purposes.

We recently completed a voluntary HIPAA assessment and found that we had no control over the use of removable storage devices; currently, employees can use personal USB drives that are not encrypted. This has the potential to allow unauthorized sharing or loss of our clients’ personal health information.

Beginning March 10, all employees who require the use of a USB drive for document storage/sharing, will be issued an encrypted USB. Sound intimidating? It’s not! The IT department has reached out to Directors to find out which employees need one of these nifty new devices. Kevin Kearney, our fearless Director of Information Technology, or another friendly member of his team, will stop by your work station to walk you through how to use the USB – step by step! If you find that you need an IT-issued USB but didn’t make the list, contact your supervisor. And you can direct any other questions to support@hchmd.org.

Computer settings for all employees will be updated beginning March 13. After that date, Health Care for the Homeless computers will no longer accept any generic USB.

There is a possibility that the USB charging function (to charge our phones, for example) may not work after we make these changes. IT will have some extra wall chargers on hand, if needed. 

Stay tuned for more updates…