Am I Required to Have an Alarm/Alarm System for My Facility Under the HIPAA Regulations?

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The HIPAA Security Rule addresses alarms in the context of the facility security plan control. The facility access control standard is a physical safeguard. One of its implementation specifications is the "facility security plan" specification: “Facility security plan. Implement policies and procedures to safeguard the facility and the equipment therein from unauthorized physical access, tampering, and theft.” (45 CFR 164.310(a)(2)(ii))." The facility security plan specification is an addressable specification - meaning it must be adopted if reasonable and appropriate to do so. Specifically, when faced with an addressable implementation specification, an entity must "Assess whether the implementation specification is a reasonable and appropriate safeguard in its environment, when analyzed with reference to the likely contribution to protecting electronic protected health information. If implementation of a specification is reasonable and appropriate, an entity must implement.

Guidance:
To prevent unauthorized physical access, tampering, and theft, CEs and BAs should include tamper-proofing measures. These measures can include seals, locks, and other deterrents that both discourage and detect any attempts at tampering. Integrating advanced security measures such as alarm systems and monitoring further enhances a facility’s protection against theft and unauthorized activities.

Electronic badges, access codes, locks, and security personnel can be used to regulate and restrict entry to the facility.

The regulations do not specifically require alarm systems.

Ultimately, whether to adopt an alarm system depends on an entity's risk profile, as determined by the results of its risk analysis. That is, if you do not have any of the above measures (these measures are physical safeguards, which the risk analysis specifically requires you to address) - badges, locks, seals, access codes, monitoring, warning systems, or other deterrents against tampering or other measures to regulate and restrict entry to your facility, you should strongly consider installing an alarm, alarm system or monitoring system. 

Which one of these to implement, depends on your risk profile.  For example, if your facility is located in a high-crime area, or you have experienced break-ins or theft of equipment, having an alarm system might be likely to make a contribution to protecting electronic protected health information - and therefore would be a reasonable and appropriate measure to implement.