What Are the Essential Components of a HIPAA Compliant Healthcare App?
HIPAA means Health insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and every health care sector is well aware of this act. The Healthcare industry introduces a HIPAA compliant healthcare app to be used by people. The HIPAA act was introduced in 1996 and was immensely expanded and described in 2013 by the final omnibus rule update.
What are the Essential Components of HIPAA Compliant App?
Developers might face a challenge while creating a HIPAA-compliant healthcare app. The reason being, it asks for several alterations on both design and features front. Therefore, it is important to create a checklist of all the essential components of HIPAA-compliant healthcare apps.
To make an error-free HIPAA compliant app, you need to take care of privacy, security, enforcement, and breach. All these privacy and security rules mainly consist of technical and physical safeguards, which are vital.
What are the Technical Safeguards?
Technical safeguards focus entirely on encrypting the data that can be stored or transferred in servers and a variety of devices. Some of the main technical safeguard practices include unique user identification, automatic log-off, and emergency access process.
You need to follow the best method by not including unnecessary needs. Focus only on the minimum and mandatory requirements. There is no need to collect more data or store data for longer as it would be of no use. Also, elude the transmission of PHI data in push notifications or disclose the information in backups and logs.
Physical Safeguards
It offers protection to the network to transfer data; secure the backend and various IOS and Android devices. It is crucial to ensure that these devices should not be compromised for the security breach, stolen or lost. To make sure that the security of the application should stay intact, you need to administer authentication.
General Features of HIPAA Compliant App
Like any other mobile app, no two health care apps can be the same. However, some features remain the same in all HIPAA-compliant healthcare app services during the development phase.
User Identification
For the user’s authentication, it is important to ask them for a password or PIN. You can build an advanced feature by giving them the option of biometric identification.
Access during Emergency
The network services need to be smooth in the case of a natural emergency. It is absolutely an excellent provision to add to regulating these issues.
Encryption
The data stored or transmitted from the app should be encrypted.
What are the Basic HIPAA components?
If you are the one who is involved in these apps to announce Protected Health Information or PHI, you should also gain knowledge about HIPAA compliant apps. The HIPAA act comes with the following components, that lays down certain guidelines to be followed.
- Protect workers and their families by providing the coverage of health insurance facilities. It can deny coverage to new health plans with reference to a pre-existing condition.
- It offers protection to workers from abuse and health care fraud. It commands simplification that needs national standards for national identifiers and electronic health care transactions for employers, providers, and health care plans.
- It offers guidelines for pre-tax medical spending accounts. It also gives deductions for medical insurance and changes to health insurance law.
- It provides guidelines for group health plans. It also offers adjustments for health coverage.
- It administers health insurance policies owned by the companies and makes provisions for handling people without United States Citizenship.
Summary
If you do not follow all these rules, then you are charged with a hefty fine. Therefore it is crucial to understand the nuisance of compliances and to implement them in health care apps.
