AeroMed Software

The first phase of the new HIPAA regulations will be going into effect on April 14, 2003, and the programmers at Innovative Engineering have been working tirelessly to ensure that our software will comply with the new regulations. These regulations will have a wide-ranging impact on how air medical services manage information and conduct business. Two regulations will affect our products and our business relationship with our clients: 1) the Privacy Rule - standards for privacy of Protected Health Information (PHI); and 2) the Security Rule which has not yet been finalized, but we have anticipated its requirements. In order to accommodate the higher levels of security required by HIPAA, we will be releasing AeroMed Software Version 6.2 on April 1, 2003. It will be the first version of the software that is fully HIPAA compliant.

Many of the features that will be required by HIPAA are already found in older versions of AMS. Username/password authentification is already required in order to use our software, and edit stamps of patient records are already performed. Users are restricted to editing only those flights in which they have participated. But additional modifications were required to meet the new guidelines. These modifications have been designed into our new Version 6.2 products. New modifications include: restricting access to viewing requests; logging all viewing, printing, exporting, and modifications of PHI; encrypting all databases; preventing access by unprotected software tools; and mandatory use of client-server architecture, which prevents any "network sniffing" of data and secures data access over WAN and internet connections. Our software has been designed to work seamlessly with the Advantage Database Server (ADS) produced by Extended Systems. We have offered ADS for several years now and many of you are already using it.1

In addition to using secure software and servers, the HIPAA regulations also regulate who may have access to the computer system. As defined under the Privacy Rule, our relationship with our clients is that of a Business Associate. In that capacity our employees and contractors may have access to PHI in the performance of installation, training, and technical support of our products. Under the Privacy Rule it is mandatory that Business Associates have a contractual agreement with their clients that assures that they will protect any PHI they come into contact with while performing these duties. Luckily, these provisions have always been written into our Maintenance Agreements. The Privacy Rule makes having a current Maintenance Agreement a prerequisite for providing technical support, training, or installation of our products.

To summarize, in order to achieve HIPAA compliance with AeroMed Software, you should:

Upgrade to Version 6.2 of AeroMed software. The license fee for the upgrade is $1495.

Purchase and install the Advantage Database Server (ADS) if you have not already done so. The price for ADS is $615 for a five-user version2, $1150 for 10 users, $1725 for 15 users, or $2495 for 25 users.

Renew your maintenance agreement if it is not current. Please contact our office for renewal rates.

Note: The 32-bit Windows version of AMS (WinAMS) is still under development and is planned for release this summer. The purchase price of the version 6.2 upgrade can be applied toward a WinAMS purchase within 12 months.

We are currently accepting orders for Version 6.2 and ADS. A purchase order will guarantee shipment by April 1, 2003. Call to renew your maintenance contract if it is not current. Our technical support staff will be happy to answer any of your questions regarding your precise needs and the HIPAA regulations. Please call (800) 915-7476.

For more HIPAA advice for your organization, check out www.hipaadvisory.com.

As always, we thank you for using AeroMed Software. We hope this information will help you with your HIPPA compliance, and in protecting the privacy and security of your patient records.

There are a few clients who purchased version 5.x of ADS early on and have not yet upgraded to ADS version 6.2, which is required for compatibility with AMS v6.2. There is a small fee associated with upgrading ADS 5.x to ADS 6.2. Clients with ADS v6.1 can upgrade to v6.2 for free.

"Users" is defined as the number of workstations simultaneously using the software. This is a more generous definition than that of our competitors or other database servers.