Connection of HITRUST AI RMF to Existing Standards (Integration with HITRUST e1, i1, or r2 Certification)

HITRUST AI RMF is not a certification or security assessment, it’s a framework designed to align AI governance, risk management, and compliance efforts with existing standards. If your organization is already HITRUST e1, i1, or r2 certified, you’re not starting from scratch when addressing AI risks. 

Instead, you’re extending your security posture to include AI risk management principles that align with existing cybersecurity and compliance frameworks.

Remember that you won’t be overhauling your security approach but enhancing it to cover AI risks. Your assessment can include AI security if you’re already HITRUST e1, i1, or r2 certified.

However, it’s important to differentiate HITRUST AI RMF from HITRUST AI Security Assessment (ai1/ai2):

• HITRUST AI RMF helps organizations structure their AI risk management approach by incorporating industry best practices for AI governance, fairness, accountability, and transparency.
• HITRUST AI Security Assessment (ai1/ai2) is a formalized security assessment that integrates AI-specific security controls within the HITRUST certification process.

Instead of assessing security controls directly, HITRUST AI RMF enables organizations to align their AI governance with principles from established security and risk management frameworks such as:

• ISO/IEC 23894 (AI risk management)
• NIST AI RMF (AI-specific governance, privacy, and transparency)
• ISO 27001 & 27701 (Information security & privacy)
• SOC 2 & HIPAA (Industry-specific security and compliance)

How to Integrate HITRUST AI RMF to an Existing HITRUST Certification

For organizations already HITRUST certified (e1, i1, or r2), AI RMF provides a framework to integrate AI risk governance into your compliance structure. This means:

• You don’t need a separate security certification to align AI governance with HITRUST.
• AI RMF helps your organization identify, assess, and mitigate AI-specific risks without requiring an additional security audit.
• HITRUST AI Security Assessment (ai1/ai2) may be the right choice if you require deeper AI security validation.

Here’s how it works:

If You’re HITRUST E1 or I1 Certified, You Can Add AI Security With “Ai1.”

This is ideal for organizations that need baseline AI security measures without adding unnecessary complexity. “ai1” integrates AI-specific security controls on top of the foundational HITRUST framework, covering areas like data integrity, model governance, and fairness monitoring.

If You’re Hitrust R2 Certified, You Can Opt for “Ai2” a More Advanced AI Security Assessment

“ai2” is designed for organizations managing high-risk AI applications where stricter security and compliance requirements apply. This level includes deeper risk management controls, advanced auditing, and stronger safeguards against AI threats like adversarial attacks, algorithmic bias, and explainability challenges.

Tailored Controls

Since HITRUST’s AI Security Assessment is designed specifically for AI, it has controls that tackle the real challenges of AI-driven decision-making.

Here’s what makes these controls different:

Built for AI’s unique risks. Traditional security frameworks focus on firewalls, encryption, and access control, which are essential but don’t address the new dangers AI introduces, like biased predictions, data poisoning, and model manipulation. HITRUST integrates AI-specific protections that go beyond traditional security approaches.

Data privacy and protection at the AI level. AI models depend on massive datasets, often containing sensitive information. But just anonymizing data is not enough. HITRUST ensures that AI systems follow strict privacy-enhancing techniques, like differential privacy and federated learning, to protect data throughout the AI lifecycle.

Bias monitoring and fairness controls. AI models can inherit biases from training data, leading to unfair decisions in hiring, healthcare, lending, and more. HITRUST requires organizations to:

• Test AI models for bias regularly and correct imbalances.
• Document and audit how training data is selected.
• Ensure fairness guidelines are followed before deployment.

Explainability and transparency standards. AI shouldn’t operate as a black box. HITRUST mandates controls that require AI systems to generate explainable decisions so that organizations can justify their outputs. It also logs how AI arrives at conclusions, allowing auditors and users to trace decisions to their sources.

Protection against AI-specific attacks. AI systems can be manipulated in ways traditional security doesn’t cover. HITRUST’s AI security controls address:

• Adversarial attacks, where hackers subtly modify inputs to trick AI into making incorrect predictions.
• Model poisoning, where attackers inject bad data during training to corrupt AI’s decision-making.
• Model inversion, where bad actors can reverse-engineer AI outputs to extract sensitive information.

Reporting

Once you complete the AI assessment, you will receive a formal, third-party verified report that complements your existing HITRUST certification. This report proves that your AI systems follow the best security, compliance, and risk management practices.

The final takeaway is that if your focus is AI risk management, compliance, and governance, HITRUST AI RMF helps you align with global frameworks without requiring additional certification.

If your organization needs a formal security assessment of AI systems, HITRUST AI Security Assessment (ai1/ai2) integrates directly with existing HITRUST e1, i1, or r2 certification.

You can use AI RMF to structure AI governance and ai1/ai2 to verify AI security controls.