Given the dominant digital age, even the healthcare industry is making a progressive shift towards virtual communications and treatment. Thanks to telemedicine applications, patients can instantly connect with doctors in times of emergency, without having to stand in long hospital queues. They can easily have conversations with doctors with regard to their treatment and medicines. Have you been planning to build a healthcare app? Well, it’s essential for it to be HIPAA compliant so as to keep the conversations secured and protected. In this article, we shall learn about the meaning of HIPAA compliance and the top HIPAA compliant chat api that can help build a healthcare application. Stay with us and keep reading.
HIPAA compliance – What does it mean?
HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It ensures patient data protection. The HIPAA law was passed in 1996. Do you know, as per studies, there were around 616 data breaches identified by the HSS’ Office for Civil Rights in 2020? There were a multitude of health records that were compromised. No wonder HIPAA is crucial for ensuring privacy of healthcare applications.
By this law, all healthcare providers should keep personally identifiable health information private and secure. To put it clear, HIPAA protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information which is also called Protected Health Information. HIPAA is applied to Covered Entities and Business Associates. This means any entity handling the treatment, payment, or other operations of healthcare and the business associates who have access to patient information must follow HIPAA compliance.
What is the meaning of PHI?
PHI stands for Protected Health Information. It refers to any information in the medical record that can be utilized to identify an individual. It includes conversations between doctors or interactions between patient and doctor related to medical treatment. Any health data is considered PHI if it is personally identifiable to the patient or utilized and disclosed to a covered entity during medical care.
Some common examples of PHI include patient’s billing information, emails containing prescription or medication details, MRI scan, phone records, appointment schedules, and much more.
Do healthcare entities need to build a HIPAA compliant healthcare app?
As discussed above, according to HIPAA law, if you belong to the category covered entities or business associates, you need to be HIPAA compliant. Following is a list of healthcare entities that need to build a healthcare application with HIPAA compliance:
- Healthcare providers including clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes, and others.
- Healthcare clearinghouses such as billing services and healthcare management systems
- Healthcare plans
How to select HIPAA compliant chat API & SDK for healthcare apps?
Have you been planning to build a healthcare application? All you need is a highly efficient HIPAA compliant messaging API for healthcare apps. Well, there are a multitude of advanced healthcare messaging APIs in the market to choose from. In this section, we will talk about 3 basic criteria that you should look into before choosing your API & SDK. Let’s have a close look at them one by one.
HIPAA compliance
When building a healthcare application, HIPAA compliance is one of the major priorities that should be taken care of. This is essential to ensure the privacy of sensitive healthcare communications that take place between doctors or patients and doctors.
Price
Every healthcare entity is different and has a different set of budgets. Hence, it is essential to choose a messaging API that suits your pocket. Make a list of your requirements and check which SDK or API can best match your needs within your money bracket.
Support
The third important factor that you should take into account is the quality of support. Look for what platforms you need your application to work on. Some APIs are especially designed for Android while some are for iOS.
Top 5 real-time messaging solutions for healthcare platform
As mentioned earlier, there is a suite of comprehensive APIs and SDKs in the market that you can utilize to build a healthcare application. Let us discuss some of them one by one.
CONTUS MirrorFly
MirrorFly can help you build a secure healthcare application with feature-rich APIs and SDKs. With one-on-one chat, video/audio calling, and health report sharing, MirrorFly can be your API option to build an efficient healthcare app. Some more advanced additional features include push notifications, broadcast, chat tagging, patient-centric panel, and much more.
HIPAA COMPLIANCE – MirrorFly is HIPAA compatible and ensures the protection of patients’ sensitive data against data exposure. It provides you with end-to-end encryption and prioritizes complete security of chat communications.
Price – One-time license cost
Support – iOS, Android, and web
Sendbird
Sendbird is a top in-app chat API for healthcare apps. Prioritize better patient outcomes with one group chat for every case. Get essential messaging features such as invitations, mentions, friend lists, typing indicators, read receipts, and others. Sendbird allows you to send images, videos or audio in automatically generated thumbnails.
HIPAA compliance – Sendbird is HIPAA compliant and provides end-to-end encryption for all Personal Health Information.
Price – Custom pricing
Support – iOS & Android
Vonage
Vonage APIs are enabled with embedded voice, SMS, and video collaborations. It is one of the top APIs to build video call solutions for healthcare web and mobile apps. With 99.999% uptime reliability and an SD-WAN, Vonage offers enhanced quality of service across any network.
HIPAA Compliance- Vonage is HIPAA compatible. Moreover, with BAA provisioning, high-security encryption, and adherence to regional and sovereign privacy laws, Vonage can help you build healthcare applications that are patient-centric.
Price – One free trial and customized pricing
Support – Android, iOS, & web
Twilio
Enable reliable and trusted communications with Twilio. From omnichannel care management to telehealth, this API can handle it all. With Twilio, you can personalize the timing and channel preferences. It allows you to streamline operations and improve patient experiences by enabling patients to confirm, reschedule, and cancel appointments through text, automated appointment calls, and portal capabilities.
HIPAA compliance – Twilio is committed to data privacy and security and is completely compatible with HIPAA law.
Price – Customized pricing
Support – iOS & Android
PubNub
It is one of the top in-app chat API and SDK for telemedicine apps. It provides you with comprehensive documentation for over 75 SDKs and helps you build a real-time communication platform for your healthcare entity. With a highly efficient location tracking feature, it enables patients to easily track the hospital or clinic location.
HIPAA compliance – It provides you with end-to-end HIPAA compliance.
Price – Paid plans for team and enterprise.
Support – Android & iOS
Conclusion
We hope our article helped you comprehend the important aspects associated with HIPAA and the top HIPAA compliant APIs and SDKs to leverage. Now, wait no more! Take your step towards building an efficient healthcare application and revolutionizing the way medical treatment is conducted.
