Sauerbraten and HIPPA Compliance

There are times when I first taste a thing and wonder where it has been all my life. I still remember my first taste of mayonnaise, brown mustard, a croissant, nachos and fish head curry. This weekend I added sauerbraten to that list. I had the expectation of a sour dish but the result was a broader range of flavors than a traditional piece of roast beef. Since I was unsure of whether I would like the dish, I also made roasted potatoes with sauerkraut seasoned with caraway seeds, a truly German dish. Sauerbraten requires three days to make, which for me is no big deal. After all, I brine almost all pork, chicken and turkey dishes over night. It takes two days to prepare and cook nearly any barbeque. And making bacon or gravlox requires three to four days. So, three days of marinating beef for this dish was no big deal. In addition to the taste of the meat my greater concern was the use of ginger snap cookies to thicken the gravy. I considered not making the ginger snap enhanced gravy and that would have been a huge mistake. For some glorious reason the ginger snaps add a lusciousness and hint of sweetness that is a wonderful counterpart to the extremely tender and flavorful beef. Sauerbraten, the recipe of the week. Enjoy!

HIPPA Compliance and VoIP

Every quarter at least one of the Broadvox VARs asks if our SIP Trunking products are HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Action of 1996) compliant. The answer is similar to the question asked about SIP Trunking call security. Yes…kind of…it depends. Is the IP communications network provided by Broadvox secure and HIPPA compliant? Yes. The more accurate question is whether your LAN, WAN, IP PBX or connection point to our network is secure and HIPPA compliant.

As a VAR or end-user, be aware of the following requirements for a HIPPA audit:

Are encryption schemes in place to prevent the unauthorized interception of calls?
Are IP endpoints running on a dedicated appliance or server with a hardened OS?
Is the VoIP network isolated on a dedicated VLAN?
Are VoIP calls transmitted over wireless technology with strong wireless encryption such as Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)?

A “No” answer to any of the above may result in non-compliance. Just recently, in order to test a VoIP connection, our SIP Engineers were required to sign an NDA specifically asking us to handle the information gathered in reviewing the voice packets in a HIPPA compliant fashion. Consequently, Broadvox understands the seriousness of HIPPA compliance and if you review the above questions for a HIPPA audit, you should know what is required to make your VoIP calls HIPPA compliant.