Wipro Technologies (Ticker Symbol:WIT) is a leading provider of integrated business, technology, IT infrastructure and process solutions on a global delivery platform. Wipro is the world's first CMMi Level 5 certified software services company. The HIPAA Academy, a division of ecfirst.com, was recognized by Inc. 500 in 2004 as America's 500 fastest growing privately held business. In the area of HIPAA compliance, the HIPAA Academy has earned the trust of over 130 hospitals in the USA.

Recently, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched audits for compliance.with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). We are now witnessing a new era of HIPAA Privacy and Security enforcement. To comply with the HIPAA regulation, hospitals must complete on a regular schedule several activities including a thorough risk analysis, development of disaster management plans, training of all employees and conduct a comprehensive audit.

The Global Managed Compliance Center is a highly flexible and scalable service that is based on Wipro's well-acclaimed Global Command Center Platform, and is designed to assist US hospitals address the compliance challenge in the following areas:

• HIPAA Privacy review
• Security Responsibility
• Risk Analysis
• Contingency Planning
• Policies and Procedures
• Security Awareness and Training
• Audit and Evaluation

In addition to providing the necessary compliance at a lower cost, this service enables complete transparency on the compliance process by incorporating an exhaustive set of dashboards and executive information templates. Clients may add more depth to their already stretched IT department by further leveraging the capabilities for monitoring and auditing critical components of the infrastructure on an on-going basis. The Global Managed Compliance Center program is a fixed monthly fee program that is very cost effective and includes clearly defined deliverables and activities.

Vijay Raman, Global Head for Healthcare, Wipro Technologies stated, "To improve the quality of care and reduce medical errors, hospitals today are under severe pressure to adopt IT aggressively while being HIPAA compliant. With tight IT budgets and limited skilled resource pool, IT is increasingly becoming a challenge for hospitals to sustain a high degree of security and privacy norms mandated by regulations like HIPAA. Wipro, together with the HIPAA Academy, an organization trusted by hospitals across the USA, now provides a platform for hospitals - large and small - to effectively manage compliance by lowering the risk and cost."

Uday Ali Pabrai, CEO, HIPAA Academy, said, "By partnering with a global IT services leader such as Wipro, we now have the capability to deliver a cost-effective, tailored, scalable platform that enables a truly integrated delivery platform for our healthcare clients. This is essential to systematically manage critical components of the IT infrastructure for ongoing HIPAA compliance with over 40 standards defined in the HIPAA Security Rule. The Global Managed Compliance Center solution now enables hospitals to have fast access to highly skilled and experienced resources for addressing compliance, infrastructure and security challenges."

"Wipro has pioneered the concept of Global Command Centers (GCCs). Today, we offer managed infrastructure services through our Global Infrastructure Command Center and security services through the Global Security Operations Center. The Global Compliance Center would add a strong layer of HIPAA specialization through our partnership with the HIPAA Academy and leverage the Infrastructure and Security centers to offer hospitals a 360 degree platform to manage compliance end to end," noted Vijay Raman.