Healthcare startups should prioritize compliance with industry standards. Its basic rules provide an obligatory foundation for building all desktop and mobile solutions. If your apps and software follow these guidelines, they will make it to users.
Medical solutions that align with the latest requirements are crucial in today’s crowded medical technology market. With so much at stake, taking any chance with a patient’s private information would be irresponsible. Therefore, even a minor error can have severe consequences for everyone concerned.
A breach of sensitive information might cost a company tens of millions of dollars, if not more. The risk is exceptionally high in the healthcare sector because of the potential for third parties to misuse patient data for their ends. Service providers and developers of the offending software may be sued in such situations.
What Does HIPAA Mean?
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is commonly referred to as HIPAA. These rules for the American healthcare system have been around since 1996. As its name implies, it is a federal law that requires the establishment of nationwide regulations to safeguard the privacy of individuals’ health records against unauthorized disclosure.
HIPAA governs providers, clearinghouses, business associates, and health plans in the healthcare industry. Numerous HIPAA advantages are available to medical professionals because of this rule’s significant role in the healthcare regulatory system.
It’s important to remember that no medical app can serve patients unless it has HIPAA certification. This makes it challenging for service providers and patients to communicate, as neither has access to the data. That’s why it’s crucial to build HIPAA-compliant, cryptographically sound software with the latest in security measures like blockchain and encryption.
Is HIPAA Compliance Really That Crucial for Medical Apps?
It’s no secret that technological advancements in healthcare place a premium on adhering to regulations. Considering the sensitive nature of patient’s medical records, any breach or noncompliance might have serious repercussions for the patients, healthcare software development companies, and hospitals involved.
Technology-wise, it’s crystal evident that industrial digitization is a big contributor to compliance issues. Many data-enabled technologies fail when it comes to protecting users’ personal information.
The healthcare industry has several standards and guidelines, subject to frequent change. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) work together to provide strong protections for patients’ personal information in the United States.
Legal provisions and industry norms safeguard confidential information. The company creating the digital health solution takes care of the technical aspects of security. The onus is on the company to demonstrate maximum accountability for the assignment at hand by enforcing data protection in accordance with the aforementioned standards and in accordance with extra processes.
The same holds true for those who design high-tech medical tools. The regulations that govern the storage and transportation of data are extremely stringent. In addition, an encryption protocol that only permits communication with the device or platform after user authentication will be required software for all digital equipment platforms. This will ensure that no outside parties may access the data.
Medical device manufacturers must notify the FDA of any safety issues with their products or services under the Medical Device Reporting (MDR) Act, passed in 2015. Because of this, there are several challenges brought on by compliance when the healthcare industry incorporates digital and technology solutions.
What’s the ballpark figure for building an app that complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act?
Numerous factors, such as product complexity, development time, technology set, team size, development speed, and more, contribute to the final price tag.
Creating a fitness app requires several processes to be completed successfully, including technical documentation, design, programming, development, prototyping, maintenance, project management, and quality assurance.
The more complexity of the health app, the greater the number of required actions. A typical app development cycle lasts around four months. There could be a delay if the software is particularly large or complicated.
To create fully functional HIPAA compliant software, you may expect to pay around $50,000. Building the full system to comply with technical and physical security standards is included in this estimate. Developers will need to invest time and energy into testing the system and getting it approved by the appropriate authorities.
Instead of starting from scratch, developers can leverage preexisting HIPAA-compliant infrastructure and solutions to create HIPAA-compliant mobile apps. Your responsibility is to verify the trustworthiness of any third-party suppliers you engage with before trusting them with your patient’s protected health information.
It’s ideal to hire a firm whose main business is the regular introduction of healthcare app solutions. A group like that would have substantial industry knowledge and consider all of the field’s needs from the start of the development process. The knowledge and skills of the project’s contributors will boost the excellence of the healthcare industry’s digital product and give your customers an excellent user experience, both of which will boost the efficacy and success of your company as a whole.
