When Your Cloud Provider Doesn’t Understand HIPAA: A Cautionary Tale

By JACOB REIDER & JODI DANIEL Jacob: I recently needed to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with one of the large hosting providers for a new health IT project. What should have been straightforward turned into a multi-week educational exercise about basic HIPAA compliance. And when I say “basic,” I mean really basic, like the definitions in the statute itself. Here’s what happened and why you need to watch out for this if you’re building health care technology. I’m building a system that automates clinical data extraction for research studies. Like any responsible h