The Importance of HIPAA Compliance When Choosing Telemedicine Solutions  | HIPAA Compliance for Medical Practices |

While the rise of telemedicine technologies is benefiting the health care industry, it may come with an intimidating effect. On one hand, health care professionals are able to provide better quality care more conveniently, improve patient outcomes and increase engagement. On the other hand, because they're sending, retrieving and analyzing privacy information via digital technology, there's a higher risk for data breach. That's what makes Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance so important. HIPAA is a set of provisions designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health insurance coverage by eliminated waste, fraud and abuse through health care delivery.

Let's take a closer look at what it means to be HIPAA-compliant and how telemedicine equipment distributors are prioritizing safety and security via telemedicine

Secure communications through telemedicine

Securing personal health information is more critical than ever before, because telemedicine systems make regularly assessing, discussing and sharing information a normal process nowadays. According to HIT Consultant, the Security Rule requires that technical safeguards are put into such systems to keep parties with unauthorized access out of private information. That's why discussing personal medical matters with physicians and caregivers via text and email may be frowned upon - these channels are not HIPAA compliant, which could encourage a data breach. Additionally, communication outlets such as Skype or FaceTime are also an issue - covered entities are required to have a Business Associate Agreement in order to be HIPAA compliant. Communicating through telemedicine, however, is safe because the information is sealed by the Security Rule.Ensure your telemedicine technology is HIPAA compliant.

Factors to consider when evaluating telemedicine technology

When evaluating potential telemedicine for your organization, make sure to consider the following factors:

  1. Access - Access to the communication of medical data should be restricted to a user database system. This can be self-contained or monitored through an external mechanism.
  2. Log user access - Ensure you can document user entry points to ensure HIPAA policies and procedures are being respected.
  3. Data in transit encryption - Data transferred between authenticated users must be fully secured.
  4. Data at rest encryption - Never permanently store data at rest within the platform - it should never be available outside of the