Attorney, Senior advisor for Cybersecurity, HHS Office for Civil Rights
Nicholas Heesters is a certified information privacy professional with over 25 years of experience supporting technology and information security efforts in many diverse industries including financial services, government, defense, education and healthcare. He earned a Master of Engineering in Computer and Software Engineering from Widener University and his Juris Doctor from the Widener University School of Law. Currently, Heesters works for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights supporting HIPAA compliance and enforcement activities.
HHS OCR issued a record number of HIPAA settlements in 2020 in cases involving patient “right of access” violations. Meanwhile, compliance with HHS’ health IT interoperability and information blocking regulations – which include provisions for providing patients secure access to their health information via...
In this session, HHS OCR provides an update on its latest HIPAA compliance and regulatory efforts - including possible modifications to the HIPAA rules. Then a panel of experts discusses:
Latest health data breach trends, including soaring hacker incidents;
The evolving regulatory climate and its impact on health...
Following the HHS OCR presentation, a panel of CISOs and regulatory and legal experts will dig into how major health data breach trends are changing, and why. For instance:
What lessons can be learned from some of the latest breach trends, including the steady surge in reported hacker incidents
Cybercriminals,...
An inside view of what HHS OCR is seeing on the healthcare sector privacy and security landscape, and what the agency has in the works to address those challenges. That includes:
Insights from OCR's latest breach and compliance investigations of covered entities and BAs.
An update on OCR's HIPAA enforcement...
With nearly 20 years of experience representing healthcare industry
professionals and entities, Vimy Devassy provides her clients with an indepth understanding of industry compliance and regulatory issues.
She has broad experience structuring complex transactions among
healthcare providers, negotiating a broad spectrum of industry relevant
contracts, and advising clients on day-to-day regulatory and compliance
matters, including fraud and abuse laws and health information laws.
Certified as a Health Care Information Security and Privacy Practitioner
(HCISPP) as well as an Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) by the
International Association of Privacy Professionals, Vimy has extensive
experience managing issues related to confidentiality, privacy and security
of health information, including compliance with the rubric of laws relating
to health information privacy such as the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA). Her work includes helping clients understand
how to align their privacy and information security programs in compliance
with applicable laws, respond to potential breach and security incidents,
permissibly utilize and share their health data, and navigate complex
privacy and security laws as they consider innovative new technologies
and business opportunities.
Attorney, Senior advisor for Cybersecurity, HHS Office for Civil Rights
Nicholas Heesters is a certified information privacy professional with over 25 years of experience supporting technology and information security efforts in many diverse industries including financial services, government, defense, education and healthcare. He earned a Master of Engineering in Computer and Software Engineering from Widener University and his Juris Doctor from the Widener University School of Law. Currently, Heesters works for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights supporting HIPAA compliance and enforcement activities.
Ms. Malikah “Mikki” Smith serves as the Chief Information Security Officer
(CISO) and Director of the Cybersecurity and Enterprise Architecture Division (CEAD), within
the Office of the Chief Operating Officer (OCOO) at HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator
for Health IT. Mikki tenure of government service with ONC has included serving as the
resident cybersecurity expert for HealthIT policy and governance, operational technology and
cross organizational collaboration.
Mikki joined the ONC organization in 2015, bringing a wide breadth of Cybersecurity
experience from multiple Federal and private sector roles spanning 15+ years of IT,
Cybersecurity and Security Program acumen. She is considered an industry leader and expert in
the area of information system security policies and procedures, applications and network
security architectures, DoD and Management & Budget (OMB) and Federal IA and Security
requirements. She has authored articles, contributed to key legislative and congressional
publications, and leads global cyber initiatives.
Mikki Smith has served as a Cybersecurity leader for agencies such as the Defense Health
Agency (DHA), Department of the Interior (DOI) and Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA). She has led large, complex, multi-disciplined and multi-geographical cybersecurity
teams and programs within the private sector and government space.
A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Project Management
Professional (PMP) and Certification and Accreditation Professional (CAP) she has been
recognized and is continually awarded for her leadership and technical expertise
Sonia Arista joined Fortinet in May 2018 and is responsible for the go-to-market strategy, solutions and sales growth for the company's healthcare business. Based in Boston, she works closely with healthcare industry leaders to demonstrate the importance of a security fabric approach to enable scalable, protected, cost-effective access to high value patient data that addresses changing regulatory standards and industry identified threats.
Prior to Fortinet, Arista was a Healthcare Strategy Principal at GuidePoint Security, serving as a subject matter expert to lead business development in healthcare. Most recently, she has been contracted to serve as an interim Chief Information Security Officer for several healthcare-related entities like Wellforce, Nuance Communications and Verscend Technologies, looking for program validation, incident response support and board-level education. Arista has also held CISO leadership positions for Tufts Medical Center, and the New England Quality Care Alliance where she was responsible for the development and management of their Information Security programs.
Christopher Frenz currently serves as the AVP of Information Security at Mount Sinai South Nassau where he worked to develop the hospital's information security program and infrastructure. Under his leadership the hospital has been one of the first in the country to embrace a zero trust model for network security. Frenz has also played a role in pushing for the adoption of improved security standards within hospitals and is the author of the OWASP Secure Medical Device Deployment Standard as well as the OWASP Anti-Ransomware Guide.
Attorney, Senior advisor for Cybersecurity, HHS Office for Civil Rights
Nicholas Heesters is a certified information privacy professional with over 25 years of experience supporting technology and information security efforts in many diverse industries including financial services, government, defense, education and healthcare. He earned a Master of Engineering in Computer and Software Engineering from Widener University and his Juris Doctor from the Widener University School of Law. Currently, Heesters works for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights supporting HIPAA compliance and enforcement activities.
Director of Information Assurance and CISO, Jackson Health System
Connie Barrera is the Chief Information Security Officer at Jackson Health System. As the CISO, she is responsible for security architecture as well as developing policy and standards related to privacy, confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the IT services throughout the enterprise. To this end, Barrera develops and maintains risk management, security awareness, and compliance programs to effectively deal with the implications of legislated requirements that impact security for the institution. This includes but is not limited to HIPAA, PCI, FDA Part 11 and the Red Flag Rules. With over 24 years of experience in IT, she has spent considerable time in almost every role within IT, including endpoint support and architecture, systems engineering and architecture, as well as her current role in security.
Information Security Specialist, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Richard Conti is currently an Information Security Specialist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where he is a subject matter expert in risk management, security incident investigations, security operations center (SOC) and threat and vulnerability management. In previous roles, he has served as IT support manager, system administrator, support specialist, and security analyst in the healthcare, academic, real estate, and radio broadcasting
industries over the last 15 years.
Attorney, Senior advisor for Cybersecurity, HHS Office for Civil Rights
Nicholas Heesters is a certified information privacy professional with over 25 years of experience supporting technology and information security efforts in many diverse industries including financial services, government, defense, education and healthcare. He earned a Master of Engineering in Computer and Software Engineering from Widener University and his Juris Doctor from the Widener University School of Law. Currently, Heesters works for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights supporting HIPAA compliance and enforcement activities.
As Christiana Care Health System's Chief Information Security Officer, Anahi Santiago is charged with providing strategic direction and oversight to a comprehensive security program, policy development, standards and controls implementation, training and awareness, regular risk assessment and mitigation, as well as partnerships with internal and external auditors. She also regularly collaborates with state and federal regulatory bodies and actively contributes to proposed state and federal regulations that govern privacy and information security. Before joining Christiana, Santiago provided similar support for the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network at a director level.
Attorney, Senior advisor for Cybersecurity, HHS Office for Civil Rights
Nicholas Heesters is a certified information privacy professional with over 25 years of experience supporting technology and information security efforts in many diverse industries including financial services, government, defense, education and healthcare. He earned a Master of Engineering in Computer and Software Engineering from Widener University and his Juris Doctor from the Widener University School of Law. Currently, Heesters works for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights supporting HIPAA compliance and enforcement activities.
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