What is HITRUST?
The Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) is a private organisation founded in 2007 that develops and maintains the HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) — a certifiable security and privacy framework designed specifically for the healthcare industry. HITRUST was created to address the unique challenges of healthcare organisations that must comply with multiple overlapping regulations and standards simultaneously.
What is the HITRUST CSF?
The HITRUST Common Security Framework is a comprehensive, certifiable framework that integrates requirements from HIPAA, NIST, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, FedRAMP and other standards into a single unified framework. Rather than maintaining separate compliance programmes for each regulation, organisations use HITRUST CSF to demonstrate compliance with multiple requirements through a single assessment and certification.
HITRUST certification has become widely accepted in the US healthcare industry as evidence of security maturity — many health systems, insurers and business associates now require HITRUST certification from their vendors.
| Standard Body | HITRUST Alliance |
| Current Version | v11 (2023) |
| Mandatory or Voluntary | Voluntary — but required by many healthcare organisations for vendors |
| Geography | USA (primary) — growing international adoption |
| Official Resource | hitrustalliance.net |
HITRUST Assessment Types
| Assessment | Description | Validity |
|---|---|---|
| e1 Assessment | Entry-level assessment covering essential cybersecurity hygiene — 44 requirement statements. Fastest path to a validated HITRUST assessment. | 1 year |
| i1 Assessment | Intermediate assessment covering leading security practices — 182 requirement statements. Threat-adaptive certification renewed annually. | 1 year |
| r2 Assessment | Comprehensive risk-based assessment — 300+ requirement statements tailored to organisational risk factors. The gold standard HITRUST certification, widely recognised by healthcare organisations. | 2 years |
HITRUST CSF Control Categories
| Domain | Name |
|---|---|
| 00 | Information Security Management Programme |
| 01 | Access Control |
| 02 | Human Resources Security |
| 03 | Risk Management |
| 04 | Security Policy |
| 05 | Organisation of Information Security |
| 06 | Compliance |
| 07 | Asset Management |
| 08 | Physical and Environmental Security |
| 09 | Communications and Operations Management |
| 10 | Information Systems Acquisition, Development and Maintenance |
| 11 | Information Security Incident Management |
| 12 | Business Continuity Management |
| 13 | Privacy Practices |
Securitora Assessment
HITRUST CSF is the de facto certification standard for healthcare technology vendors in the United States. If you sell software or services to US health systems, hospitals or insurers, HITRUST r2 certification is increasingly a procurement requirement rather than a differentiator. The framework’s strength is its integration of multiple regulatory requirements into a single assessment — organisations avoid the inefficiency of maintaining separate HIPAA, NIST and ISO 27001 programmes. The cost and time investment is significant, but for healthcare vendors it is well justified.
| Recommended for | Healthcare technology vendors, health systems, insurers and their business associates |
| Difficulty to implement | High — comprehensive assessment requiring significant documentation and external auditor involvement |
| Best used with | HIPAA · NIST CSF 2.0 · ISO 27001 |
| Official resource | hitrustalliance.net → |