Healthcare Software Is Different

Healthcare software development carries unique responsibilities. Errors in medical software can directly affect patient health and safety. Data breaches expose sensitive health information. Regulatory non-compliance results in significant penalties. At Nexis Limited, our healthcare solutions — including medical imaging PACS systems — are built with these constraints as foundational requirements, not afterthoughts.

Regulatory Compliance

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)

HIPAA establishes standards for protecting sensitive patient health information (PHI). Key requirements for software developers:

  • Encrypt PHI at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3).
  • Implement role-based access control with minimum necessary access.
  • Maintain comprehensive audit logs of all PHI access.
  • Conduct regular risk assessments and document security measures.
  • Sign Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) with all cloud providers and subprocessors.

GDPR for Health Data

Health data receives special protection under GDPR. Processing requires explicit consent or another lawful basis specified in Article 9. Data subjects have the right to access, rectify, and erase their health data. Cross-border data transfers require appropriate safeguards.

Interoperability with HL7 FHIR

HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) is the modern standard for healthcare data exchange. FHIR represents clinical data as resources (Patient, Observation, Medication, DiagnosticReport) accessible through RESTful APIs. Key benefits:

  • Standardized data models that enable system-to-system communication.
  • RESTful API design that developers already understand.
  • JSON and XML representations for maximum compatibility.
  • Extensibility for country-specific or organization-specific requirements.

Medical Imaging (DICOM and PACS)

Our experience building PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) solutions has given us deep expertise in DICOM standard handling. DICOM images can be very large (CT scans may include thousands of slices), requiring efficient storage, streaming, and viewing. We built our PACS viewer using Rust and WebAssembly for client-side rendering performance.

Data Security Architecture

  • Network segmentation — isolate healthcare data processing from general infrastructure.
  • Field-level encryption for sensitive data like SSN and diagnosis codes.
  • Immutable audit logs stored separately from application data.
  • Automated PHI detection and classification.
  • Regular penetration testing and vulnerability scanning.

Conclusion

Healthcare software development requires rigorous attention to compliance, security, and interoperability. The technical challenges are significant, but the impact — improving patient care and outcomes — makes it deeply rewarding work.

Building healthcare software? Our team has experience with HIPAA-compliant systems and medical imaging.