HIPAA violations carry fines from $100 to $50,000 per violation, up to $1.5 million per year per violation category. The cost of building HIPAA compliance into your architecture from the start is a fraction of the cost of retrofitting it later — or paying the fines.
HIPAA's Three Rules
The Privacy Rule
Governs the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI). Requires minimum necessary access, patient consent, and the right to access their own records.
Architecture requirements:
- Role-based access control with minimum-privilege defaults
- Audit logging of all PHI access
- Patient-facing data export endpoint
- Consent management system
The Security Rule
Specifies administrative, physical, and technical safeguards for electronic PHI (ePHI).
Architecture requirements:
- Encryption at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.2+)
- Unique user identification and authentication
- Automatic logoff after inactivity
- Integrity controls (checksums, digital signatures)
- Transmission security (TLS, VPN)
The Breach Notification Rule
Requires notification within 60 days of discovering a breach affecting 500+ individuals.
Architecture requirements:
- Breach detection system (anomaly detection, access pattern monitoring)
- Automated notification workflow
- Audit trail that can reconstruct the scope of any breach
The HIPAA Architecture Template
Archiet includes a healthcare-specific architecture template that implements all three rules:
Data Layer
- PostgreSQL with row-level security and column-level encryption for PHI fields
- Separate databases for PHI and non-PHI data
- Automated backup with encryption (AES-256-CBC)
- Point-in-time recovery capability
Application Layer
- Authentication with MFA support
- RBAC with healthcare roles (physician, nurse, admin, patient)
- PHI access audit logging (who accessed what, when, from where)
- Session management with automatic timeout (15-minute default)
- API rate limiting per user and per endpoint
Integration Layer
- HL7 FHIR R4 compliant API endpoints
- Secure file transfer for medical records
- Encrypted webhook delivery for real-time notifications
Infrastructure Layer
- Private VPC with no public subnets for PHI data stores
- WAF for application-layer protection
- CloudTrail / equivalent for infrastructure audit logging
- Separate staging and production environments
Generating the Codebase
In Archiet:
- Start the Architecture Wizard
- Select "Healthcare" as your industry
- Describe your application
- The AI includes HIPAA-specific ArchiMate elements automatically
- Generate code — HIPAA controls are built into the output
- Run Compliance → HIPAA to verify coverage
The generated codebase includes PHI encryption helpers, audit middleware, and RBAC configuration out of the box.
Getting Started
Archiet's Professional plan includes HIPAA compliance assessment alongside SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, PCI-DSS, DORA, and NIS2.
7-day free trial. No credit card required. Your first HIPAA gap analysis in under 10 minutes.