Developing HIPAA Compliant Applications

Leverage Dash to achieve HIPAA compliance across healthcare applications

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Get HIPAA Compliant With Dash

Dash ComplyOps makes it easy for digital health companies, health providers, and and software vendors to build and manage robust HIPAA compliance programs. Developers of healthcare applications and solutions can turn to Dash to configure, monitor, and maintain HIPAA compliance for their cloud environment.

Dash enables teams to create custom administrative policies, set technical controls, and build and sustainable HIPAA/HITECH security programs. Teams utilize Dash to rapidly develop HIPAA compliant software and manage compliant workloads.

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 developing 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.

Requirements For HIPAA Compliant Applications

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. Dash ComplyOps 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 Developing 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:

  1. Sign a Business Associates’ Agreement (BAA) with your cloud service provider. This agreement outlines all security responsibilities between you and the cloud provider.
  2. Build and adopt appropriate HIPAA administrative policies and procedures for your organization.
  3. Utilize only HIPAA eligible services and implement all necessary technical safeguards and security protections.
  4. Monitor your HIPAA security program, assess changes within your organization and technology, and follow your compliance program.

Manage HIPAA Compliance With Dash ComplyOps

Dash ComplyOps 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 build robust HIPAA security programs that work alongside your current workloads rather than deal with expensive consultants or proprietary platforms.

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.

Learn More About Dash ComplyOps
Administrative Policies

Create Custom HIPAA Policies For Your Security Program

Compliance Monitoring

Continuously Scan for Compliance Concerns

Technology Agnostic

Build Internal Controls For Any Tech Stack

Issue Management

Manage Compliance Issues Before They Become Breaches