Mobile App Series: Privacy by Design
Report on Patient Privacy Volume 23, no 1 (January 2023) The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said a data breach at a Medicare subcontractor impacted the personally identifiable information and protected...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) adopted a policy statement on Sept. 15, 2021, emphasizing that developers of digital health apps, connected devices and other health products have obligations under the Health Breach...more
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans have increasingly relied on digital health apps to manage their personal health and wellness. These apps include traditional telehealth apps through which patients can complete...more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently unveiled a new website with updated guidance and resources for mobile health app developers regarding the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and...more
The federal Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights, which enforces HIPAA, maintains a website with very helpful "frequently asked questions" (FAQs) regarding the HIPAA Privacy Rule and Security Rule....more
A recent issue of MIT’s Technology Review magazine is titled, “Look how far precision medicine has come.“ At least part of the premise is that personalized medicine or precision medicine is not perceived as having made the...more
The pace of innovation in healthcare today has produced an amazing increase in the number of available mobile apps for health-related information. More than 300,000 healthcare apps are available online. These apps are...more
This month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued guidance on privacy and security best practices for health-related mobile apps, such as fitness apps connected with wearables, diet and weight loss apps, and health...more
As regulators seek to define their authority and the scope of their enforcement power, more health apps will continue to flood the marketplace and transform how patients are treated. As mobile health applications...more
Consider this: A 42-year-old man arrives at the emergency room showing signs of a heart attack. The ER doctors, using the patient’s activity tracker—in this case, a Fitbit® —are able to pinpoint when the patient’s normal...more
The Federal Trade Commission furthered its outreach to the mobile app developer community last week by issuing new guidance for integrating privacy and security into mobile health apps, as well as an interactive online tool...more
While attending the International Association of Privacy Professionals annual global event, and listening to Chairwoman Edith Ramirez discuss the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) concerns about consumer privacy, the FTC, the...more
Predicting whether the activities of a mobile health application developer trigger legal obligations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) presents some new challenges – not surprising...more
The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has released a new platform to provide mobile health developers (and any other interested stakeholders) a sounding board to ask questions, voice concerns, and “spitball” ideas about HIPAA...more
Many telehealth and mHealth app developers are concerned about whether or not their app is a medical device under FDA regulations (and rightfully so), they often pay less attention to the Health Insurance Portability and...more