Ask HN: HIPAA compliant version of Wufoo?

I explored this idea for some time.

Basically, if I wanted to put together a 'Wufoo for the Medical Field' the easiest way to get around the HIPAA compliance is to use the Google Health model. Essentially your 'Primary Relationship' would be with the user, not the HealthCare provider as a vault for them to store their stuff and 'authorize a data push' to the healthcare provider on an ad-hoc basis.

The largest roadblock to an idea like this is that the healthcare industry is decidedly anti-innovation. Not on purpose, its just how the economics work. Industry consultants and solution providers have been trying to get e-health going for a LONG time, and only now are we seeing things like doctors carrying around ipads.

Integrating with healthcare systems involves either integrating with the large integrators, who dont have an api and who arent in the business of opening up hooks for data pushes (Unless their customer says they want to do it) for potential competitors OR hanging out with the small 1 doctor office medical practitioners who most likely dont understand their technology and don't understand why they need to move things online and 'into the cloud.'

I reached out to the drchrono guys to try to get access to their api so that I could build a proof of concept for this and do an end run around the established tech providers, but I never heard back from them. Their API has been 'coming soon' for a long time.

If you decide you want to store information on behalf of the HealthCare provider, then you have to be HIPAA compliant and then getting something like this off the ground becomes an order of magnitude more difficult. I looked at the process/paperwork for becoming HIPAA compliant, and it doesnt look that difficult, but it does look like something designed to keep small guys from entering the field.

Sorry for the ramble. Hope it helped.

My mother runs a dental practice and I was just looking into Wufoo for her new patient registration, medical history, and consent forms. After some searching around a bit, I came across several examples of what I'm after but I'm not so sure of the legality.

https://hdp.wufoo.com/forms/p7x3x5/

https://dentists4kids.wufoo.com/forms/s7p7r3/

http://drbobporter.wufoo.com/forms/hipaa-and-consultation-pa...

https://dentalbliss.wufoo.com/forms/p7x3a1/

Because I'm just now getting plugged into the healthcare sector, what is allowed and what isn't in regards to data on 3rd party websites? How do digital signature work? Is there a central place I could go to learn?

Because my mother's practice has always been pen and paper for the past 25 years, they haven't even started looking into digital options. Now that we are, I need make sure that everything is legal since the practice means everything to her.

Thanks for any insight and guidance! This post is exactly what I was looking for.