How to Make a HIPAA Complaint App?
Tags: hipaa, healthcareapps, mobile, softwar
Published: 2022-09-14 10:46:31

As more people rely on social media, the healthcare industry like anything else is going through a major technological innovation. If you are thinking of [healthcare mobile app development](https://addevice.io/blog/healthcare-mobile-app-development-step-by-step-guide/) for the US market, you must know about HIPPA. But the first thing to do is to study [medical and healthcare apps for general businesses](https://addevice.io/blog/medical-healthcare-apps-for-businesses/). When it comes to HIPAA, it may seem challenging but with some research, you will put all the mess into separate folders and proceed with developing an app that is HIPPA compliant.
In this blog post, you will learn:

1. What is HIPAA?
2. What Makes HIPAA Compliance Important?
3. Steps to Develop a HIPAA Compliant Mobile App
4. Cloud storage and HIPAA compliance.

### What is HIPPA?
HIPPA or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was developed in 1995 to regulate the healthcare industry, particularly regarding protecting patient data, healthcare costs, and insurance coverage. It requires establishing national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge.
 
The rule here is simple: If your application processes, stores, or transfers any PHI data (protected health information), it has to be HIPAA compliant.
 
What is included under PHI?  PHI covers any demographic information, medical histories, test and laboratory results, mental health conditions, insurance information, and other data. This information may be collected by health practitioners to identify an individual and provide appropriate care.
While HIPPA is a US act, other countries have established their requirements governing the use of private medical data. So, even if you want to create software for other countries like Europe, you need to comply with the requirements.

### What Makes HIPAA Compliance Important?
You don’t want others to know that you have diarrhea, do you? Well, HIPPA protects patients from disclosure of their personal medical information. But it does more than that. HIPPA helps to control breaches of data security violations. It also gives greater control of patient medical records. So, in the sense of patients, HIPPA serves two functions:

- Data security
- Data privacy

There are different [types of healthcare applications for patients](https://addevice.io/blog/healthcare-applications-for-patients/). When it comes to HIPAA, the story is different.
HIPPA is important not only from the standpoint of patients. It has its value for healthcare organizations as well. How do they benefit? HIPAA helps to transfer paper documentation into electronic data. While some say that this adds to bureaucracy, others believe that it increases work processes’ efficiency and ensures that the protected healthcare system is safely secured.
So, if you are a software developer, you need to have a HIPPA-compliant app if you want to sell.
Let’s see how.

### Steps to Develop a HIPAA Compliant Mobile App
When building an m-app, you need to take care that it is HIPAA compliant. Basically, the requirements relate to safeguards on data security and access control. In general, HIPAA targets four areas:

- Privacy Rule
- Security Rule
- Breach Notification Rule
- Enforcement Rule.

Here are some steps to make your app HIPAA compliant.
**Access control**
This feature controls who can see or access patient information.
**Entity authentication**
Those who have access to data should be authenticated.
According to legal requirements, the following methods should be present:

- Biometrics
- Password
- A key, card, or token
- PIN.

**Encryption**
The transmitted data should be encrypted. This is done with the help of unique algorithms which transform PHI into characters that do not make sense without decryption keys.
**PHI disposal**
PHI should be destroyed when no longer needed. This means that there should be no copies in any backups.
**Audit controls**
Without audit controls your business is risking higher fines. Therefore, you should record each time a client signs all through your framework. Nothing should be lost, including all operations with sensitive information, within HIPAA mobile apps.

### Cloud storage and HIPAA compliance
If so much focus is made on data confidentiality, a question arises if hospitals and medical businesses can use a cloud service to store or process PHI. The answer is “yes” if the business enters into a contract with CSP to create, receive, maintain and transmit PHI that is HIPAA-compliant. This means that the hosting provider should understand HIPPA standards to ensure all healthcare information is kept secure and patient data remains confidential.  This also means that IT specialists should think ahead of data security and standards.
While it’s useful to study [cloud-based application development](https://addevice.io/blog/cloud-based-application-development/) in general, standard [managed cloud services](https://outeredge.biz/managed-cloud/) for health-related businesses are not enough. Instead, comprehensive HIPAA-compliant hosting services are required. 
To make sure that the hosting provider is fully compliant, they should provide any HIPAA audit attestations or compliance certifications that include HIPAA.
A [BAA](https://www.ispartnersllc.com/blog/direct-liability-business-associates-under-hipaa-rules/) (business association agreement) should be signed that will define the way the health information will be stored and handled even when the contract ends.
Some of the best HIPAA-compliant cloud storage services are:

- Google Cloud Drive
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Amazon (AWS)
- Box
- Atlantic.Net

### Conclusion
As is evident, making a HIPAA-compliant app is not an easy task. The services provider should be fully competent and aware of HIPAA standards. Any breach of HIPAA requirements can result in liability. Therefore, it is essential that your business asks a series of questions to the service provider, including questions on HIPAA audit attestation and certification. You should also enter into a BAA or business associate agreement with the service provider. Once done, the contract will regulate your relations with the service provider and ensure full compliance with HIPAA standards.