Hipaa 2(I: Fill & Download for Free

We know who the bad nurses are. We can't let on to you because we are a team, and long after you go home, we still have to work with them. But we know, and it hurts us, too. It isn't always possible, but we will try to intervene when we can, to make things less crappy for you.I really hate getting asked to get the “Diet Coke, no ice” for your cousin. I'm not trying to be a jackass, but the guy down the hall is drowning in his own lung fluids, and I really need to go help him out instead of to the vending machine. But I can't tell you “room 141 needs morphine, Ativan and glyco because he's dying”, because HIPAA. Similarly, I won't tell 141 that you're in for septicemia of the scrotum. ;)

Yes, in fact I’ve committed HIPAA violations.I had the husband of a patient call me for information about her cancer. I’d met him on the initial consult. This was a couple of years later when he called to check on her because we changed her treatment. So I explained what we were doing and about 2 months later I got a letter from her attorney complaining because the husband and wife were getting divorced and the husband used the medical update for extra leverage.In another situation, I had a patient call to ask me the results of his scans. I relayed them to him and also answered questions on expected prognosis and treatment. It turned out to have been the patient’s brother and not the patient. The 2 brothers were suing each other regarding a joint venture gone bad. I got another attorney letter.Nothing came of the letters because during all that time, I was making every effort to treat both these patients’ cancers successfully. But their attorneys’ understandably didn’t think that my divulging information made their jobs easier.But after that, I no longer give information by phone regarding test results or treatment plans.The most egregious example of discipline related to HIPAA occurred at one of the universities to a friend of mine. My friend was suspended without pay for 6 months (I would have quit in disgust). She shared an administrative assistant with another faculty member. The secretary neglected to log out from the computer with my friend’s ID and re log in with her associates’s ID and instead entered a restricted patient’s file (a celebrity) to access test results. The electronic record sent an alarm.The university “investigation” clearly showed that the administrative assistant was at fault, but was protected by the union. So they suspended my friend without pay for 6 months. My friend is a single mother of 2. I have no idea how she supported her family for 6 months without pay.The problem with HIPAA penalties is that there is no room for intent or error. Its ridiculously draconian and HIPAA issues have gotten to the point where I can’t get test results from elsewhere without multiple forms being signed by the patient and faxed around town. It’s one more thing that employees have to be hired for in every practice or clinic that have very little to do with patient care.

From a developer’s point of view, the steps to building an app for the healthcare sector are not much different from any other, e.g. a fitness app or messenger.When creating a health app it is important to keep in mind some specifics, such as an app should be designed in a way that won’t harm a user and all users’ data should be secure and protected from thieves.How can an app harm users’ life? Well, that’s what happened with FitBit some years ago. It was designed to help people biome more active, yet it didn’t take into account the specific health conditions those same people had. Which led to very unpleasant situations and even lawsuits.For the same reason, inadequate testing and QA is of particular importance when you build healthcare apps.In addition, healthcare apps should meet the applicable security standards established by the government. Different regions have different standards, for example:1. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (USA). This act regulates sensitive medical data flow between servers. Any mobile health app that deals with protected health information (PHI) need full compliance with HIPAA.2. Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) (Canada).3. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU).4. Data Protection Act (DPA) (UK).Consistently keeping your end-users’ best interests front and center will help in building a valuable and successful product.