Framework: HITRUST

Inheritance and shared responsibility take on greater complexity under r2, especially for organizations leveraging multiple cloud or managed service providers. Candidates must understand that HITRUST allows inheritance when a third party provides a validated control aligned with the same assurance level. However, the inheriting organization remains accountable for verifying applicability, reviewing documentation, and ensuring alignment with its environment. Assessors evaluate how clearly these responsibilities are defined in contracts, shared control matrices, and MyCSF entries.

Operationally, mature r2 programs maintain documented evidence of inherited controls—such as provider certifications, audit reports, and configuration details—alongside their internal validation processes. For exam purposes, candidates should be able to differentiate between full and partial inheritance, explain evidence requirements, and recognize how shared responsibility affects scoring and sampling. HITRUST’s model ensures that while organizations can reduce redundant effort through inheritance, they must still demonstrate oversight and assurance of external dependencies to maintain certification integrity.
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