Network Frontiers Cures Compliance Misery

LAFAYETTE, CA, January 12, 2011–  Network Frontiers, the premier provider of IT Compliance mapping, has released the Q4 2010 Unified Compliance Framework quarterly update. The Q4 2010 release focuses on mapping Healthcare Authority Documents.

Mapping compliance guidance to governance controls is a demanding process, as it involves analyzing and harmonizing an often lengthy series of interconnected instructions, rules, and regulations, and then distilling often obtuse verbiage into a set of understandable guidelines. But even Network Frontiers professional compliance mappers were amazed at the overall lack of clarity in the lengthy healthcare compliance documents.

“We know how to work effectively with often obtuse compliance authority documents, but I have to admit that healthcare overall is by far the most complex and convoluted documentation we’ve seen,” says Dorian Cougias, Lead Analyst of the Unified Compliance Framework (UCF).

Thankfully, UCF users don’t have to struggle with making sense of compliance documents. The UCF maps IT controls from over 400 international regulatory requirements, standards and guidelines, and is updated quarterly. The newest update includes 724 IT controls mapped from 14 Healthcare authority documents, with a total of 4,726 newly added or revised citations in the Q4 2010 update.

Network Frontiers’ unique methodology transforms this massive compilation of data into a single set of straightforward requirements that clearly show the many points where multiple regulations overlap, enabling businesses to quickly create a customized set of controls that fully leverage their existing compliance policies, processes and tools.

Inspired by the lack of clarity in the healthcare authority documents, the UCF is now publicly publishing The Unified Compliance and Governance Manual of Style. This manual will be
available in both Word and PDF formats to all UCF licensees. It is based on the legislative style manuals that the US Federal Government and US states use.

“The style manual will help people provide clear, actionable compliance documentation for their own projects,” says Cougias.

The UCF is the trusted source for business compliance management and has been licensed by industry leaders including Microsoft, McAfee, Lumension, and Wolters Kluwer for use in their own governance, compliance, and risk management solutions. Many UCF users begin working with the spreadsheets and, as they realize the value and ROI of the harmonizing IT controls, move up to a Network Frontier partner’s automated solution to further alleviate the stress and cost of compliance demands.

The UCF is also available for direct purchase, in spreadsheet format, from Network Frontiers.

The UCF was created Network by Dorian Cougias and his research partner, Marcelo Halpern of the international law firm Latham and Watkins, which oversees all legal aspects of the UCF. More information can be found at unifiedcompliance.com.

About Network Frontiers and the UCF

Since 1992, Network Frontiers has developed ground-breaking tools to support IT best practices with a special focus on regulatory compliance, metrics, systems continuity and governance. The Unified Compliance Framework (UCF) is Network Frontiers’ flagship product. By focusing on commonalities across regulations, standards-based development, and simplified architectures, the UCF supports a strategic approach to IT compliance that reduces cost, limits liability, and leverages the value of compliance-related technologies and services across the enterprise. The UCF’s content and methodology is the direct result of Network Frontiers deep understanding of IT regulations and standards and decades of experience consulting for clients, publications, and vendors in the mission-critical IT arena.