Healthcare App Development — Compliance, Architecture & Best Practices

Healthcare apps are some of the most complex and high-stakes software projects you can build. Patient data privacy, clinical accuracy requirements, and regulatory compliance add layers of complexity that consumer app development doesn't face. Here's the architecture and compliance guide we use for every healthcare project.

HIPAA: What Developers Actually Need to Know

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) applies to any software handling Protected Health Information (PHI) — names, dates of birth, contact information, health records, or any data that could identify a patient in combination.

• →Encryption in transit — TLS 1.2+ for all API communication
• →Encryption at rest — AES-256 for all stored PHI
• →Audit logs — who accessed what data, when, and from where
• →Access controls — role-based access with minimum necessary data principle
• →BAA (Business Associate Agreement) — required with any cloud provider storing PHI
• →AWS has HIPAA-eligible services; sign a BAA before storing PHI on AWS

HL7 and FHIR: Health Data Standards

HL7 v2 is the legacy standard for healthcare data exchange — XML-based messages between hospital systems. FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) is the modern RESTful API standard — used by Epic, Cerner, and the Apple Health Records API.

If your app needs to exchange data with hospital EHR systems, FHIR R4 is the standard to implement. The Apple HealthKit and Google Health Connect APIs both use FHIR for structured health data.