Alexa Healthcare Skills
Alexa Skills Kit > Get Deeper > Custom Skills > Alexa Healthcare Skills
Alexa implements specific administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for protected healthcare information processed by a HIPAA-eligible skill. For example, when your customers use your skill the words they say will not appear in their voice history. In addition, your customers will have the same transparency and control over their privacy that they experience with all Alexa skills and Echo devices.
We have a standard Business Associate Agreement between you and Amazon that you agree to for each HIPAA-eligible skill.
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You can develop a custom, public Alexa skill that is eligible to handle protected health information (PHI).
You can use our Alexa Skills Kit to learn how to build an Alexa skill on your own. You can also hire an experienced skill building agency.
All Alexa skill developers agree to the Amazon Developer Services Agreement. In addition, HIPAA-eligible skill developers agree to the Alexa Skills Business Associate Agreement for each HIPAA-eligible skill.
In addition to meeting our general Alexa certification requirements, policies, and security requirements, your skill must meet all requirements for skills that are HIPAA-eligible.
A public skill is a skill that is published in the Alexa Skills Store for any customer to find and enable on their Alexa device.
You can require that customers use account linking to authenticate before they are able to use your skill. You can learn more at Account linking and the user experience in the Alexa app.
You can can tell us about that skill on our contact form. You cannot submit a skill that has already been published. Note, if you want a skill that you have already published to be HIPAA-eligible, you must create a new skill but may use the same source code. The proposed skill must still be accepted into the program and the new skill must meet all requirements for skills that are HIPAA-eligible. Once you say that the skill will handle protected health information and agree to the Business Associate Agreement, your skill will be subject to all requirements for skills that are HIPAA-eligible and it cannot be undone.
Skill developers can build skills for Covered Entities and Business Associates. We require that the Amazon developer account is owned by the entity that will publish the skill but do not restrict account administrators from granting additional users, including skill developers, access to assist with development.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HIPAA for Professionals website is a good resource to learn more about the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In particular, you may be interested in the summary of the Privacy Rule which defines Protected Health Information (PHI) and Covered Entity and Business Associate.
