The Health Information Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA improves health care by putting medical records online, while also protecting patient privacy. In 1996, the HIPPA law was passed in order to address several concerns then existing in the medical field. The intend of HIPPA act is to ensure the continuity of healthcare insurance cover for people who are in changing jobs and a provision to be made for the management of health information for confidentiality of medical records.

The privacy requirements concern the non-disclosure of any individually identifiable information like name, address etc of the patient. Administrative standards like user authentication, audit trails, access controls, software discipline, disaster recovery and physical recovery that need to be covered under HIPAA compliance are specified by the security regulations.