Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) provider Caspio has launched a new version of its application development platform that is specifically designed for healthcare professionals.

The new release, Caspio HIPAA Enterprise, is a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant (HIPAA-compliant) edition of its app development platform.

HIPAA Enterprise ensures healthcare professionals “can leverage cloud-based applications to improve efficiencies and streamline processes in practice management, patient engagement and health information management — all within a secure and compliant environment,” according to Caspio.

“The healthcare market presents a tremendous challenge to IT departments and application developers who must ensure their solutions are fully compliant with the industry’s strict regulatory requirements,” Caspio CEO Frank Zamani said in a prepared statement. “With Caspio HIPAA Enterprise, compliance is no longer an obstacle, and the rapid development platform allows our customers and partners to expand their businesses by quickly creating custom healthcare applications to their exact specifications.”

HIPAA Enterprise features:

“Healthcare professionals can easily create HIPAA-compliant cloud applications that improve efficiencies and streamline processes in practice management, patient engagement, knowledge sharing, research and development and business operations [with HIPAA Enterprise],” Caspio wrote in a blog post.

Caspio also noted all HIPAA customer accounts reside on an entirely separate and dedicated infrastructure running on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Why is HIPAA compliance important?

HIPAA was enacted in 1996 and created national standards for the security of electronic protected health information (PHI).

The act ensures PHI is secure yet accessible for healthcare providers and enables patients to receive medical treatments without compromising their privacy.

In addition to Caspio’s new release, several cloud services providers (CSPs) have launched cloud solutions to help businesses comply with HIPAA.

Hosting service provider SherWeb last October launched an email product suite designed to help businesses meet HIPAA regulations.

8×8 added HIPAA support to its Virtual Office VoIP phone service in May 2013 as well.

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