According to a distinguished panel of lawyers from MSD and Covington & Burling, companies involved in Digital Health deals need to ask themselves the following questions:
In the second of a three-part series, Covington’s global cross-practice Digital Health team considers some additional key questions that companies across the life sciences, technology, and communications industries should be asking as they seek to fit together the regulatory and commercial pieces of the complex digital health puzzle.
Key Commercial Questions When
Contracting for Digital
Healthcare providers, health plans, and other entities are increasingly utilizing cloud services to collect, aggregate, store and process data. A recent report by IDC Health Insights suggests that 80 percent of healthcare data is expected to pass through the cloud by 2020. As a substantial amount of healthcare data comprises “personal information” or “protected health information” (PHI), federal and state privacy and security laws, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, raise significant questions for healthcare providers and health plans utilizing the cloud in connection with such data. Such questions include whether HIPAA requirements extend to cloud providers, how and if entities storing health data on the cloud will be notified in case of a breach, and whether storage of data overseas by cloud providers triggers any additional obligations or concerns.
Continue Reading Moving to the Cloud: Some Key Considerations for Healthcare Entities