HIPAA-Compliant App Development for Mobile Devices

Key Takeaways

• HIPAA-compliant app development for healthcare providers involves creating mobile applications that meet the requirements outlined in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
• These apps are designed to securely collect, store, and transmit protected health information (PHI) while ensuring patient privacy and confidentiality.
• Developers must adhere to HIPAA regulations, such as implementing strong security measures, obtaining patient consent, and maintaining accurate records of PHI disclosures.
• Care providers can benefit from HIPAA-compliant apps such as telemedicine, electronic health records (EHRs), medication management, and HIPAA-compliant patient portal apps.
• HIPAA compliance is essential to protect patient privacy, avoid legal consequences, and maintain trust in care providers.

HIPAA-Compliant App Development: An Overview

HIPAA compliance issues affect medical practices, insurance companies, and eCommerce companies that offer medical devices, fitness, equipment, and telemedicine app development. HIPAA, an acronym that stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, was passed in 1996 and took effect in 2003. The act mandates privacy protection for protected health information (PHI) and other sensitive data, including digital electronic health records or electronic medical records (EHR/EMR).

If you need to make your app HIPAA compliant, you need to keep reading to find out how it can protect patient medical data.

Electronic Health Record (EHR) Apps

EHR apps can be accessed from computers, tablets, and mobile devices, allowing healthcare providers to access patient records from any location with an internet connection. This enables providers to access medical data and make informed decisions about patient care, even when they are not physically in the same location as the patient.

HIPAA-compliant telemedicine software apps can contain a wide range of health data including medical history, diagnoses, medications, allergies, immunization records, and lab results. They can also include patient demographics, insurance information, and other administrative data.

EHR apps can also be used for a variety of clinical tasks, such as ordering tests and medications, recording patient progress notes, and managing care plans. They can also be used for administrative tasks, such as billing, scheduling, and reporting.

Medication Management Apps

Medication management apps are software applications that help patients manage their medication schedules, dosage, and refills. These apps are designed to ensure that patients take their medications as prescribed by their care providers, reducing the risk of missed doses, overdose, or medication errors.

This can be a tablet or HIPAA-compliant phone app, allowing patients to access their health data from anywhere. These apps can include features such as medication reminders, refill reminders, dosage tracking, and drug interaction checking.

Medication Management Apps can also provide patients with information about their medications, including side effects, potential drug interactions, and instructions for use. This can help patients better understand their medications and improve their adherence to treatment plans.

HIPAA Compliant Mobile App Development for eCommerce

Healthcare mobile app development is critical for eCommerce companies, and consumers have embraced apps in a big way for their internet-connected devices. Mobile apps sell in locations like Apple's App Store, Blackberry App World, and Google Play. In particular, eCommerce companies get strong cost-value results by developing proprietary apps for their customers because these applications make it easier to order on mobile devices and provide shortcuts for many online activities.

Fitness and health apps, which are usually subject to HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules, must have an accompanying HIPAA-compliant website. Downloads of fitness apps have increased 87 percent faster than market averages according to TechCrunch.

Wearable Applications Gain Traction

The latest generation of wearable applications monitors physical activity, health conditions, and fitness metrics such as calories burned, steps taken, and distance covered. Consumers are embracing wearable apps that are built into clothes and accessories. The apps track, record, and store key metrics like blood pressure, pulse rates, glucose levels, and other proprietary and confidential patient data that fall under HIPAA standards and regulations.

These products and their related apps provide a bonanza for eCommerce companies, but these apps could potentially expose health data if HIPAA security best practices aren't followed. Private medical practices, insurance companies, medical device providers, and fitness apps must comply with HIPAA law or face fines, penalties, data breaches, lawsuits, and damaged customer relations. They need the best HIPAA-compliant CRM software available from a trusted medical app developer.

Making an App HIPAA-Compliant Isn't Easy

Ensuring you achieve mobile app HIPAA compliance is doable, but it's vital that you find medical app developers with extensive experience. Clarity has created many secure, flexible, and robust HIPAA-compliant mobile apps, and we're ready to help you.

Contact Us For A Demo

Mobile App HIPAA Compliance Standards

Fitness apps such as Google Fit and Apple Health underscore how important it is to understand the law when developing apps. Not all healthcare apps require mobile app HIPAA compliance, but if an application collects, stores, transmits, or shares health information, then it must follow HIPAA best practices.

• If an app sends or shares health information among doctors, medical staff workers, hospitals, clinics, or insurance companies, it must meet HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules.
• If an app shares health data with a covered entity (CE) or business associate, it must be HIPAA compliant.
• Apps that provide generic information about health, various illnesses, nutrition, and similar matters don't necessarily need to comply with HIPAA, but they might if customers can use the apps to store personal health information.
• Medical app developers can protect apps from breaches by implementing strong, mandatory passwords and installing remote disabling programs to clear information from lost or stolen mobile devices.
• Healthcare app developers whose apps are subject to HIPAA rules need to create plans for monitoring information, recording usage history, investigating breaches, and taking steps to prevent future breaches.
• If a breach in data occurs, the developer needs to inform any customers whose health data was compromised.
• Encryption and decryption programs should be incorporated into apps and the corresponding HIPAA-compliant website design.

Proactive HIPAA Compliant App Development

Programmers for eCommerce apps need to think outside the app and anticipate how customers might use apps in different ways than expected. Anonymous data ceases to be anonymous if customers use their apps and devices to store medical details like disease symptoms, personal health benchmarks, and other PHI like mental health indications and symptoms of mental disorders.

If a device is capable of storing patient data—even if it wasn't intended to be used that way—it falls under HIPAA rules. Examples of unexpected app use that is subject to EHR/EMR HIPAA compliance include:

• Storing information about medical appointments and care providers
• Diaries of appointments that include specific dates of service that could be used to identify patients
• Sharing symptoms or recovery times with other covered entities, individuals, or business associates
• Sending emails from an app might breach privacy because emails aren't encrypted
• Anticipating how to communicate with users when they're using an app because unprotected communications could expose information to data breaches
• Using third-party services, such as TrueVault and others, to enable communications between a covered entity's HIPAA-compliant database software and the customer app's database.
• Considering how push notifications could expose confidential information to unprotected exposure on devices that are used in public settings
• Researching FDA regulations to determine whether any given app could be considered a medical device under HIPAA rules
• Understanding that passive devices that record activities like REM sleep, sleep habits, muscle use, and respiration rates could be subject to EHR HIPAA protection

Developers should consult attorneys before starting medical app development, as well as agencies like the Department of Human Services, as part of their due diligence when building health-related apps. Regulatory complexity is rewriting the rules almost daily, so it's important to anticipate unexpected app uses and make apps that comply with HIPAA before launching  eCommerce initiatives. The fines for HIPAA noncompliance are steep and could easily neutralize any expected profits or benefits of customers using non-compliant apps. Err on the side of caution by developing apps that are HIPAA compliant.

If a database contains any kind of protected health information, then it, as well as associated HIPAA-compliant websites, must be encrypted. Apps that share information must share decryption information to enable searches. Developers should also vigorously recommend that their customers use passcodes for their devices and apps. Although it's impossible to force customer compliance with passcode best practices, developers can build roadblocks and incentives in their apps to encourage compliance.