HIPAA-compliant Software Development for mHealth

Digitalization took over lots of industries thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and various quarantine restrictions connected to it. The Healthcare industry is one of the most prominent on the digitalization list — and the most challenging. One challenge connected to the development of mobile healthcare apps or software for wearable devices (mHealth) is their need for HIPAA compliance.

HIPAA (meaning Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) governs the management, storage, and transmission of protected health information (PHI). Since September 2013, all the software meant for healthcare has had to follow HIPAA guidelines to ensure compliance.

Not only software but all people who work with patient data should get HIPAA certification. For them, it means undergoing special training that ensures their compliance with HIPAA regulations.

One of the most common HIPAA compliance mistakes is when an entity is not even aware of their software’s need for HIPAA compliance. In fact, if a software stores, collects, manages, or transmits any PHI, it should be HIPAA compliant.

So what is HIPAA compliance? What makes software HIPAA compliant? What software needs to comply with HIPAA rules? Answers to these and other questions around HIPAA compliance you can find in the following article, where we also discussed steps to achieve HIPAA compliance and steps to create a HIPAA compliant app. As a bonus, we created a downloadable detailed checklist that will help you ensure data security when dealing with healthcare software.