Building HIPAA Compliant Health Applications
Leverage Dash to achieve HIPAA compliance across healthcare applications
Becoming HIPAA Compliant With Dash
Dash ComplyOps makes it easy for digital health companies, software solutions, and software vendors to build and manage a robust HIPAA security plan. Developers of healthcare solutions can turn to Dash to configure, monitor, and maintain HIPAA compliance for their cloud environment.
Dash enables teams to leverage the flexibility and scaling power of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the public cloud, rather than deal with the development overhead and expense of proprietary “healthcare clouds”. Developers can utilize Dash to rapidly build HIPAA compliant software and applications.
Do I Need To Be HIPAA Compliant?
Any covered entity (CE) or business associate (BA) that comes in contact with protected health information (PHI) must comply with HIPAA regulations. Covered entities including healthcare providers, doctors offices, and insurance companies must follow HIPAA requirements. Any vendor that works with these organizations and may store, process, or transmit PHI must follow HIPAA guidelines. This means, software vendors that sell solutions to hospitals must be HIPAA compliant.
Organizations that do not work with healthcare stakeholders and do not collect protected health information (PHI) do not fall under the realm of HIPAA. For example, companies that manage consumer health information, such as Fitbit or nutrition planning apps, may fall outside of the scope of HIPAA.
HIPAA Compliance Certifications?
Unfortunately there is no official certification for HIPAA compliance. Organizations building HIPAA compliance software, must implement all proper administrative, technical, and physical safeguards and must continue to maintain their security program. HIPAA compliance is not a once-and-done item. HIPAA requires that organizations to continually update, review, and manage security standards.
Many cloud service providers have established security programs and certifications that are inherited by customers. Using a solution such as Dash, allows teams to leverage the security Programs and jumpstart their compliance efforts.
Administrative Safeguards
Administrative safeguards include creating HIPAA administrative policies, conducting employee training, performing risk assessments, and periodically reviewing compliance standards.
Technical Safeguards
Technical safeguards include implementing security and technical controls, such as configuring user authentication, audit logging, backup, and disaster recovery.
Physical Safeguards
Physical safeguards include restricting server access, building maintenance, employee access, and any other security of PHI and physical devices with PHI.
Many cloud solutions and public cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) follow the shared responsibility model. Under this model, the cloud service provider manages all physical safeguards required under HIPAA, such as employee access, facility maintenance, and locking servers. Learn more about the App Store requirements or health apps.
Organizations are generally responsible for the administrative and technical safeguards required under HIPAA. This includes creating HIPAA administrative policies, and implementing technical controls and securities such as backup, disaster recovery, and audit logging in order to meet HIPAA compliance software requirements. The Dash Compliance Automation Platform can simplify this process.
Failure to comply with HIPAA regulations can result in fines of up to $50,000 per violation (per patient record) with the maximum penalty of $1.5 million per year. Violations may also carry criminal charges resulting in jail time.
Steps For Building HIPAA Compliant Applications
There is no official certification for HIPAA compliance. Developers building healthcare applications must implement all necessary physical, administrative, and technical safeguards and manage compliance standards over time.
There are several steps to implementing HIPAA compliance software requirements:
- Sign a Business Associates’ Agreement (BAA) with your cloud service provider. This agreement outlines all security responsibilities between you and the cloud provider.
- Build and adopt appropriate HIPAA administrative policies and procedures for your organization.
- Utilize only HIPAA eligible services and implement all necessary technical safeguards and security protections.
- Monitor your HIPAA security program, assess changes within your organization and technology, and follow your compliance program.
Manage HIPAA Compliance With Dash
Dash enables digital health companies and healthcare software developers to configure, monitor, and maintain HIPAA compliant environments on the public cloud. Dash HIPAA compliance software enables teams to leverage the flexibility and scaling of public clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), rather than deal with the development overhead and expense of proprietary “healthcare clouds”.
Dash makes it easy to meet HIPAA compliance software requirements. Manage compliance tasks, view and remediate compliance issues. Dash can reduce your compliance workload by 100’s of hours a year, allowing your team to develop better patient outcomes.
Administrative Policies
Create Custom HIPAA Policies For Your Security Program
Compliance Monitoring
Continuously Scan for Compliance Concerns
Technology Agnostic
Build On Any Tech Stack With 100+ AWS Services
Issue Management
Manage Compliance Issues Before They Become Breaches