January 29, 2026 As a healthcare practice, your primary focus is patient care. You’ve likely hired an IT security team to keep your systems running smoothly. It feels like the final piece of the HIPAA compliance puzzle, right? Having an IT team doesn’t automatically make you HIPAA compliant. HIPAA requires documented administrative, physical, and technical safeguards, like a Security Risk Analysis (SRA), written policies and procedures, and ongoing HIPAA training for your workforce. While having an IT team is strongly recommended to keep your patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI) safe, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. HIPAA Requires Documentation (Not Just Fixes) While your IT team can assist with ensuring the technical side of HIPAA is in shape, like installing firewalls, antivirus software, encryption tools, and more, they might not know all of the legalese that comes along with HIPAA. In the world of HIPAA compliance requirements, if it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen. Your excellent IT team can get your network back online in record time, but the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) doesn’t just want to know that you’re back up and running; it wants a documented process for how your practice handles similar situations. That’s why extensive documentation is at the foundation of a compliant practice. The SRA reviews potential technical, administrative, and physical vulnerabilities your practice may face. HIPAA policies and procedures dictate how your office handles everything from a patient requesting their records to terminating an employee’s access on their last day. If your practice is investigated, the OCR won’t just look at your firewall; they’ll also ask to see your SRA, policies, and procedures. If your practice has nothing documented, “we have an IT guy” won’t save you from a fine. HIPAA Physical Safeguards Go Beyond the Firewall IT teams can get serious about their hardware, but the physical safeguards your practice must implement to be HIPAA compliant don’t stop at your tech stack. HIPAA physical safeguards include anything that serves as a barrier to the secure handling of PHI. At the end of the day, make arming the door alarm part of your closing routine to help protect PHI after hours. IT teams focus on digital support, but they can’t remotely verify that your staff has engaged your physical safeguards. No code can fix it when someone leaves a paper chart on the counter. HIPAA Training Requirements and the Human Element Your IT team can build the tallest digital fortress in the world, but they can’t stop an employee from leaving the front door unlocked. HIPAA compliance isn’t a software package; it’s a culture. While your IT team manages the technical safeguards, your staff is responsible for their behavior. Think of it this way: IT can block social media on your office network, but they can’t reach into a staff member’s pocket and stop them from posting about a patient on their personal phone. Technical safeguards are useless if your team doesn’t understand its individual responsibility to keep PHI secure. That’s why thorough HIPAA training and cultivating a culture of compliance are the real keys to success for your practice – and they happen to be things your IT team can’t patch or automate. IT Security and HIPAA Compliance: Working in Parallel Strongly consider an IT team to help your practice meet technical HIPAA requirements. However, your IT team can’t fulfill all the HIPAA requirements for your practice. That’s why the best solution is to use innovative compliance software alongside an IT company. Intelligent compliance platforms can generate dynamic documentation, pinpoint vulnerabilities with an intuitive SRA, and send out engaging training to staff. With these two working in tandem, you empower your staff, and you can feel confident that your practice complies with HIPAA. Want help turning HIPAA requirements into clear documentation, an SRA, and trackable training? Talk with our team to see how Abyde supports your practice.