The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act came out in 1996, utterly changing the landscape of healthcare as we know it. Before that fateful day, health information was shared and accessed at the whims of the healthcare organizations overseeing it. 

However, HIPAA - and the following HITECH act of 2009 - created and defined federal regulations that those organizations must now uphold, providing an extensive checklist for protecting their written and electronic health records.

Today, healthcare companies are leaning on increasingly advanced solutions - including innovative healthcare apps like Udo - to help them stay organized and remain HIPAA compliant.

The Philosophy of HIPAA

Though HIPAA has caused its fair share of frustrations for healthcare workers and record-keepers, its stated goal is pretty noble.

HIPAA intends to ensure that a patient’s health information is accessible and secure. So if that patent needs to access their health information, they’ll be able to do so - either through printed records or through an electronic health record patient portal.

However, sometimes these stated goals conflict with one another. And in general, HIPAA implementation over the years has focused more heavily on the privacy and protection aspects than on access.

Maintaining Security and Privacy

For healthcare providers to remain HIPAA compliant, they must ensure their patient's health information is adequately protected.

This includes preventing internal and external access to patient information from people who shouldn’t have access. 

In practical terms, this could mean enabling two-factor authentication for any devices that access electronic health records. Or it could mean internal permissions that prevent certain staff members from accessing the records of patients who aren’t under their care or in their department. Physical safeguards, like key cards - are also covered under HIPAA and HITECH.

Security at the cost of access HIPAA lays out some prominent areas in which providers must ensure that each patient's health information is protected when it comes to safety. However, accessibility is not necessarily as actionable.

In many cases, the security used to maintain a patient’s privacy and security end up clashing with the patient’s ability to access and share their health information.

For instance, a hospital might require a patient to sign a release before obtaining a significant lab result or x-ray. However, if that patient lives an hour away from the hospital in question, that can stop the patient from getting ahold of that information.

For many hospitals, the risk posed by security breaches is a more pressing threat than potentially inconveniencing patients with the security to prevent such violations. Ideally, there would be some solution that ensured patients could access their information while remaining secure.

HIPAA Compliance and Convenience Through Technology

As with so many problems before it, the ability to combine ease of access and HIPAA compliance may come down to new technology available within healthcare.

Today, information access is moving toward app-based technologies like Udo, where patients can instantly access - and share - their health information with whoever they want. To learn more, visit udo.com.