(Legacy) The Guards Assessment Process

Assessments help you better understand your Organizations risks and identify gaps.  Throughout your initial Implementation Process and your Annual Reviews, your Implementation Coach will assist in getting you set up with Assessments for your Organization.  

These Assessments can be accessed by clicking the Program option on the left navigational panel, and then landing on the Assessments Tab on the page.

The Guard includes the following Assessments

• Physical Site Assessment (Add one for each Site)
• IT Risk Assessment 
• Device Inventory
• HIPAA Cloud and Application
• HIPAA Security Assessment
• HIPAA Privacy Assessment (Required for Covered Entities, not your Business Associates) 
• HIPAA HITECH Assessment

To add a new Assessment, select the blue Add Assessment button.

Select the Program you are working with (HIPAA/OSHA) and then choose the Assessment you would like to add.  If you are adding the Physical Site Assessment, please select the specific Site that Assessment is for (remember, you will want to add one Physical Site Assessment for each Site you have).  If you are doing an Assessment Org-Wide, select All as the Site, and check off the Organization-Wide tick box.

The Frequency can be set to One Time, Annually, Monthly, Biannually, and Quarterly.  Compliancy Group recommends One Time.  Set the date you would like the Assessment to Launch, and then click Create.  You will then see the Assessment on the main page.

These Assessments (minus the Device/Could and Application Inventories), are a series of Yes, No and Not Applicable questions.  If you are confident that your Organization addresses the requirement, select Yes. If you are unsure as to whether or not your Organization has met the requirement, select No. 

*Selecting No is OK!  Compliancy Group recommends that if you are thinking about the question for longer than 20 seconds, select No.  We understand Organizations feel uncomfortable selecting No, but in the end, it makes you more secure. For each question that has been answered No, a Task is created with guidance on how to remediate the identified gap. If at that point you realize you do have a policy and/or a procedure in place, that Task can simply be closed.

If you believe a question does not apply to your Organization, select Not Applicable. However, when selecting Not Applicable, you must provide notes as to why the question does not apply to your Organization.

Once the Assessment is complete, The Guard will identify the gaps in your Organization and create Remediation Plans and Tasks in order to guide you on how to close them.

To complete an Assessment, answer each question using the selections at top (Yes, No, Not Applicable.  Or you can assign the question to another User to answer the question

• When you select Assign to a User, also select the User from the Assign Question to Employee dropdown). 
• Users do not receive the questions they are assigned until you have Finalized the Assessment.

Add any notes to the Notes Field and set the Degree of Risk by selecting one of the values from the Degree of Risk dropdown menu (if you answer No, set the Risk level to a 7 or higher, 10 being the most at risk).  Click the Continue button to go to the next question.

When all questions are answered, click the Finalize button to complete the Assessment. Once you finalize the Assessment, the answers cannot be changed.  If the Finalized button does not allow you to click it, there is a question in the Assessment that does not have an answer to it.

The Guard gives you the opportunity to download Assessments as an Excel Spreadsheet so that they can be sent and answered externally if needed (eg: Your IT Company).  This can be done by clicking on the menu icon at the far right of the Assessment on the main page, and selecting Download.

You will have the ability to answer these questions directly on the spreadsheet and upload it back into The Guard once complete. 

• Please do not add any columns or make changes to the template itself as you will not be able to upload it when complete.

The Device and Cloud/Application Inventories can be found by selecting Assets from the left navigational panel.  Read more about Assets here.

If you have any questions on adding or completing the Assessments, please contact [email protected]