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Three Ways to Ensure Healthcare Software HIPAA Compliance this Year
The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is one of the essential regulations that healthcare software developers must follow in the United States.
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CIO Applications | Friday, October 01, 2021

When dealing with sensitive PHI, make sure that only authorized individuals have access to it. This includes databases, backups, and event logs, as well as any other data saved in your software system.
FREMONT, CA: The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is one of the essential regulations that healthcare software developers must follow in the United States. This law safeguards personal health information. Anyone who works in or invests in the medical field is aware of it, but failing to follow its principles appropriately can have far-reaching effects. Companies fail to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI in a reasonable and suitable manner. Healthcare organizations faced millions of dollars in fines on behalf of the victims of the breaches due to poor hardware and software controls. Here are three ways to ensure healthcare software HIPAA compliance:
Backup and Storage Encryption
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When dealing with sensitive PHI, make sure that only authorized individuals have access to it. This includes databases, backups, and event logs, as well as any other data saved in your software system. It could be kept in places outside your control, such as on a server shared with other customers of the same hosting company. The data on this server must remain encrypted and unavailable if it is hacked in any way. As a result, we use AES and RSA encryption techniques with strong keys, as recommended by the industry (preferably 256 bits for AES and at least 4096 bits for RSA). A PostgreSQL manager with built-in data encryption could be a viable alternative.
Identity and Access Management
Identity and access management are critical for HIPAA compliance. Passwords and user IDs for institutional data must be kept as secure as possible and never shared among staff. HIPAA has strict requirements for the level of security that must be maintained to preserve the privacy and security of user data. HIPAA compliance necessitates the use of system logs. To monitor all login attempts and changes to PHI, the system should keep access logs and event logs. Two Factor Authentication (2FA), which uses two kinds of authentication to authenticate an individual's identity, should be used to make sure that only authorized users have access to sensitive data and information. Nevertheless, there is a demand for quick access to this information. In the healthcare industry, new technologies such as biometrics and single sign-on (SSO) are gaining traction to stay secure while giving data on demand.
Transport Encryption
Before being communicated, any ePHI (electronic Protected Health Information) must be encrypted. HIPAA-compliant software encrypts sensitive health data during transmission, and the first step is to use SSL and HTTPS protocols to secure it. Your SSL configuration should be allowed by your public or private cloud provider to ensure effective encryption mechanisms. Pages that gather or display health data and login pages are protected by the former. There should be no non-secure copies of these pages available. Double-check that the HTTPS protocol is configured correctly and that no TLS versions are expired or unsafe.
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