Data Handling

Infrastructure Overview

Care Bridge operates on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure located in the United States. Our infrastructure is designed to meet healthcare-grade security and reliability requirements, with redundancy and failover capabilities to ensure continuous availability of your data.

Encryption Standards

We implement comprehensive encryption across our entire platform:

• Data at rest: AES-256 encryption for all stored data, including databases, file storage, and backups
• Data in transit: TLS 1.3 for all network communications
• Key management: AWS Key Management Service (KMS) with automatic key rotation
• Database connections: Encrypted channels exclusively, with no unencrypted database access permitted

Access Controls

We enforce strict role-based access controls (RBAC) across our platform:

• Least-privilege principle: users and systems receive only the minimum permissions necessary for their role
• Physicians access only the cases assigned to them
• Administrative access is limited and requires multi-factor authentication
• Automated access reviews ensure permissions remain appropriate over time
• Service-to-service communications use IAM roles with scoped permissions, never shared credentials

Audit Logging

Every access to protected health information is logged in an append-only audit trail. Audit logs capture who accessed the data, when, what was accessed, and what action was performed. These logs are retained in accordance with HIPAA requirements and are available for compliance reviews and investigations.

Audit logs themselves are protected from tampering and unauthorized access through separate access controls and encryption.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

We maintain comprehensive backup and disaster recovery capabilities:

• Automated backups with encryption at rest
• Regular backup restoration testing to verify data integrity
• Disaster recovery procedures with defined Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
• Geographic redundancy for critical data

PHI Protection Measures

We implement specific safeguards to prevent accidental exposure of protected health information (PHI):

• Zero-PHI notifications: all email, SMS, and in-app notifications contain no medical information — they direct you to log in to the secure portal
• Zero-PHI payment metadata: payment records contain only opaque order identifiers, generic service descriptions, amounts, and currency — never medical information
• Zero-PHI logging: system logs and error reports are automatically scrubbed of any potential PHI before storage
• Zero-PHI URLs: no medical information appears in web addresses, query parameters, or API endpoints
• PHI Guard: an engineering-level protection layer that enforces these rules programmatically across all data pathways

Business Associate Agreements

Any third-party vendor that may access protected health information is required to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) before gaining access. This contractual requirement ensures that all parties in the data handling chain maintain HIPAA-compliant practices.

We maintain active BAAs with our cloud infrastructure provider, AI service providers, payment processor, communication services, and all other vendors in the PHI data path. No vendor accesses PHI without a signed BAA in place.

Questions About Data Handling

If you have questions about how your data is handled, stored, or protected, please contact us at: security@carebridge.dev

For all communications involving medical information, please use the secure messaging feature within our platform. Do not send PHI via email.