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Guide to HIPAA Compliant App Development in 2023

Just a heads up!

According to U.S. government data, “The number of healthcare breaches in the first five months of 2022 has nearly doubled from the same period last year.”

Furthermore, as per the May 2022 healthcare breach report,

  • 40 healthcare providers and 867,465 patients were affected by the hacking.
  • 7 business associates and 2,241,838 patients were affected by the hacking.
  • 5 health plans and 978,877 patients were affected by the hacking.

No, we are not trying to scare you!

As a healthcare IT company that works closely with healthcare entities, we are trying to warn you.

Regarding, what could happen if you avoid HIPAA-compliant app development or HIPAA-compliant software development.

Why Is It So Crucial to be HIPAA Compliant?

Only gain, No loss.

The US Department of Human & Health Services stipulated HIPAA for Protected Health Information (PHI) which entitles all healthcare entities to implement security safeguards on their physical, network, and processes.

But Exactly What Does HIPAA Cover Under the PHI?

  • Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
  • Medical Records
  • Details of health plans
  • Social Security number
  • Membership or account number
  • Photos and images
  • Biometric Data
  • Medicare details

The HIPAA doesn’t single out sharing methods.

You are liable even if a patient data breach is done electronically ePHI, verbally, or in writing.

Why HIPAA is important

1. Security for Your Systems and Servers

To avoid data breaches, it’s essential to stay updated with the latest anti-malware and anti-virus.

With HIPAA compliant app development, you don’t need to worry about your app security performance.

Because it helps you sense the threat profiles easily while at the same time keeping your healthcare app or software up-to-date with security performance.

2. Red Flags Recognition

When you adopt HIPAA compliant app development, your app is constantly scanned for detecting suspicious activities on your servers.

Thus, it eventually helps your security analyst to detect and fix threats that can affect any of the patient health records.

3. Privacy

Healthcare apps or software hold massive storage of patients’ personal, medical, and financial data.

Thus, it’s important to protect that sensitive data against cyber criminals.

HIPAA compliant app development can reduce the data breach risks for you which directly helps you gain the trust of your users.

4. Assurance

When your app or software is HIPAA compliant, you don’t need to worry about data security and safety.

This enables you to focus on the other key responsibilities in your healthcare ecosystem rather than being stuck with the security loopholes all the time.

How Do We Execute HIPAA-Compliant App Development?

We do more than just assist you with HIPAA technical requirements.

Our dedicated HIPAA compliance specialist will also advise you on HIPAA administrative and business needs.

Our lead HIPAA compliance specialist has designed a 5-step planning to successfully execute HIPAA-compliant app development.

how to develop HIPAA compliant app?

1. Scope Determination

It includes the intended region of the organization/network that we prioritize for controls.

Technical safeguards, administrative safeguards, and physical safeguards we address all on our HIPAA compliant app and software development checklist.

2. Asset Location, Risk Audit Analysis, Asset Identification

Risk evaluation is necessary to identify the scale of the infrastructure and the level of control required.

This stage result helps us in the identification of each gap in order to protect your healthcare app or software development in this gigantic wave of cyber attacks.

3. Implementation

Our HIPAA compliance specialist closely works with the healthcare developers team to render policy/procedure/documentation definitions and related records of people, processes, and technology used for execution while at the same time administering all the technical requirements.

4. Internal Auditing

It is a method that, on the one hand, assures successful implementation and, on the other hand, incorporates safety standards into the firm life cycle.

5. HIPAA Compliance

At this point, you can claim your app or software that completely meets the HIPAA compliance privacy laws.

6. Risk Assessment

As a healthcare service provider, you are always at risk of cyberattacks and data breaches.

Another risk that looms always in your head is assessments from the Information and Privacy Commissioner as you saw above, the data breaches can affect the entire healthcare ecosystem.

That’s when a HIPAA consultant like us comes to the rescue!

Features of HIPAA-Compliant App Development

HIPAA-compliant app development is not like other app development processes.

Because here, features also play a crucial role in protecting patients’ data against cyber attacks.

Following are the features that you should use for HIPAA-compliant app development.

1. User Identification

Simple login with email is not the safest way to make your app HIPAA compliant.

You have to set more stronger user authentication.

For example,

  • PIN
  • A smart card or certificate-based authentication
  • Biometric authentication

2. Emergency Access

This feature is not a direct requirement for HIPAA compliant app development.

However, it is crucial to have this feature in order to help user to access the patient’s data

Because during an emergency, it is important to have faster access to data in order to lower the chances of a life-threatening situation for the patient.

3. Encryption

The encryption feature protects the data against unauthorized access.

And whether the data is at rest (not moving between two systems) or in transit (moving between two systems) or in use, encryption is must needed.

4. Shareable Data Format

The data must be in a standard format like HL7 and FHIR in order to achieve accurate and streamlined data-sharing processes.

Why Should You Go For HIPAA-Compliant App Development with Us?

We are your THE ONE HIPAA compliance consultant because we go beyond compliance for you!

We are your local HIPAA compliance experts with local on-the-ground expertise and experience with HIPAA standards, hurdles, and the smart way to handle every HIPAA need.

1. We Have Hands-On Experience

We have almost a decade’s worth of experience in developing technologies and healthcare solutions for healthcare startups, organizations, and enterprises.

2. We Have a Comprehensive Understanding of Healthcare

Experienced and knowledgeable about legal standards, we have assisted various clients in the healthcare sector in creating law-abiding policies and procedures.

We highlight compliance issues that are potential dangers to your app or software in accordance with HIPAA regulations.

3. We Have Healthcare-Specific Compliance Specialists

Our compliance specialists are fully aware of the consequences of data privacy breaches in the healthcare ecosystem.

Thus, they work with our healthcare-specific IT team in order to eliminate every inch of the security loopholes during HIPAA compliant software development or app development.

4. We Have Knowledgable Health-Tech Experts

Tech team that achieves all your technical requirements for HIPAA compliant app and software development.

Our team understands the seriousness of the problem and your local healthcare system inside out, and we can offer outcomes in a timely and sabotage-free manner.

We will aid in logging everything according to requirements, doing frequent audits, training your employees in compliance rules, drafting data privacy policies, workflow tools to support implementation, quality assurance, and preparing PIA and TRA.

Checklist for HIPAA-Compliant App Development

HIPAA compliance checklist

We Guarantee HIPAA-Compliant App Development

We are purpose-driven healthcare IT experts.

As we have been dealing with compliance concerns since our inception, we are completely aware of every gap in the compliance audit.

Hence, we have created a comprehensive framework for HIPAA-compliant app and software development which guarantees that your healthcare app or software is fully compliant with the HIPAA laws.

We have also created an internal checklist for compliance audits to make sure that you get the best results.

With Our Result-Driven Framework and Checklist, We Have Completed 50+ Compliance-Related Projects for

  • Healthcare professionals
  • Clinics
  • Hospitals
  • Enterprises
  • Large-scale healthcare organizations
  • Government agencies
  • Canada and USA-based Universities

What makes us special from the rest is that we give our clients a complete documentation report of the compliant audit so that they don’t need to worry about whether the app or software is HIPAA compliant or not.

Case Study: How We Helped a Telemedicine App to Accomplish HIPAA-Compliant App Development Standards?

It was just last year when virtual healthcare took a launching boost.

That was the time we were approached by a development firm working on developing a healthcare application.

Owned by a couple of physicians they wanted to get a full compliance security audit before making their app public in the Canadian healthcare domain.

With a deep-dive analysis of the application, we carried out security and risk assessment, security standard audit, asset, and device audit.

All with the help of the cloud and network security team.

And our HIPAA development specialist was present at every single step till absolute success was achieved.

And guess what the result was?

We filled 47 security gaps!