Impanix
As the healthcare industry continues to rely on technology to streamline processes and improve patient care, it’s more important than ever to ensure that sensitive data is stored and transmitted securely. That’s where AWS HIPAA-eligible services come in. AWS offers a wide range of services that meet the strict security and compliance requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), allowing healthcare organizations to leverage the power of the cloud while maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their data. In this blog, we’ll explore some of the key AWS HIPAA-eligible services and how they can benefit healthcare providers and their patients.
Contents
What Is A HIPAA-Eligible Service?
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is a US federal law that establishes privacy and security standards to protect personal health information. HIPAA-eligible services are those that comply with HIPAA regulations and are able to handle protected health information (PHI) in a secure and confidential manner.
HIPAA-eligible services can include a wide range of healthcare-related services, such as electronic health record (EHR) systems, telemedicine platforms, medical billing and coding software, and other digital tools used by healthcare providers and their business associates. These services must meet HIPAA requirements for data encryption, access controls, data backup and recovery, and other security and privacy measures.
Which Are AWS HIPAA Eligible Services?
AWS (Amazon Web Services) provides a number of services that are eligible for use in compliance with the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). These services help customers meet the HIPAA standards for the secure handling and storage of protected health information (PHI).
Some of the AWS services that are eligible for use in a HIPAA-compliant environment include:
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
- Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
- Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
- AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
- Amazon CloudFront
- Amazon Elastic Load Balancer (ELB)
- Amazon Glacier
- Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)
- Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
- Amazon ElastiCache
- Amazon Redshift
- AWS Key Management Service (KMS)
- Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)
- Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
- Amazon API Gateway
- AWS Lambda
- AWS CloudFormation
- AWS CloudTrail
- AWS Direct Connect
Above all, it is important to note that simply using these services does not guarantee HIPAA compliance, as the customer is ultimately responsible for implementing the necessary security controls and processes to protect PHI. AWS also provides a HIPAA compliance program to assist customers with their compliance efforts.
Should I Use AWS Services That Are Not HIPAA-Compliant
If you are handling Protected Health Information (PHI), it is not recommended to use AWS services that are not HIPAA-compliant to store, process or transmit that data. HIPAA sets specific standards for the secure handling and storage of PHI, and using services that are not HIPAA-compliant may result in violations of these standards, which could lead to regulatory penalties and fines, as well as damage to your reputation.
AWS provides a number of HIPAA-eligible services that specifically help customers meet HIPAA requirements for the secure handling and storage of PHI. These services include encryption of data at rest and in transit, access control, audit logging, and other security features that are required by HIPAA. If you have non-PHI workloads that do not require HIPAA compliance, you may use other AWS services that are not HIPAA-compliant, but you should still be aware of the security implications and ensure that appropriate security measures are in place to protect your data.
Architecting HIPAA-Compliant Applications
When architecting HIPAA-compliant applications on AWS, there are several key considerations to keep in mind:
- Design for Security and Compliance: Firstly, ensure that your architecture meets the specific security and compliance requirements of HIPAA. This includes implementing strong access controls, encryption of data at rest and in transit, and other security measures to protect PHI.
- Use HIPAA-Eligible Services: Secondly, use AWS services that are eligible for use in HIPAA-compliant environments, such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and Amazon RDS. These services help you meet the requirements of HIPAA, and AWS provides guidance on how to use them in a compliant manner.
- Build Resilient and Fault-Tolerant Architectures: Build your application with resilience and fault tolerance in mind, so that it can handle failures and outages without impacting the availability or integrity of PHI.
- Implement Auditing and Monitoring: Implement auditing and monitoring to detect and respond to security events and potential violations of HIPAA requirements.
- Ensure Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Implement business continuity and disaster recovery measures to ensure that your application can recover from unexpected disruptions, such as natural disasters, power outages, or cyber-attacks.
- Train Your Staff: Ensure that your staff is trained in HIPAA compliance and security best practices to ensure that they can effectively use and operate the architecture in a compliant manner.
- Perform Regular Security Assessments: Finally, perform regular security assessments and audits to ensure that your architecture continues to meet the requirements of HIPAA and to identify any potential security issues or vulnerabilities.
Overall, by following these considerations, you can design and operate a HIPAA-compliant application on AWS that protects PHI and meets the specific requirements of HIPAA.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AWS provides a number of HIPAA-eligible services that are designed to help customers meet the specific security and compliance requirements of HIPAA. When architecting HIPAA-compliant applications on AWS, it is important to design for security and compliance, use HIPAA-eligible services, build resilient and fault-tolerant architectures, implements auditing and monitoring, ensure business continuity and disaster recovery, train your staff, and perform regular security assessments. If you are looking to implement any of the Infosec compliance frameworks such as SOC 2 compliance, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and GDPR compliance, Impanix can help. Book a Free consultation call with our experts or email us at [email protected] for inquiries.
315 W 36th St. 5th floor, New York, NY 10018, United States
+13073069000