Mac apps for therapists and doctors that keep patient information on your Mac
For notes, letters and translations that involve patients, use apps that do their work on your Mac and send nothing anywhere, so no outside company ever holds the health information. Dictate notes with Volna, translate a referral or a patient’s message with Kalila, and cover names and numbers on screenshots with SimpleShot before you send them. Your records system stays as it is; these tools cover the moments in between.
What HIPAA asks of the tools you use
In the United States, HIPAA expects a business associate agreement with any company that creates, receives, maintains or transmits protected health information for you. A cloud dictation or transcription service that receives your recordings is one; so is an online translator you paste a discharge letter into.
An app that runs on your own Mac and never sends its maker anything is in a different position: the information stays on a device you control, and what HIPAA asks of you is to secure that device. Your compliance officer has the final word on what your practice may use. Outside the US the logic is similar: data protection laws such as the GDPR treat health data as a special category, and the fewer parties that receive it, the less there is to answer for.
Session notes by voice
Dictating right after a session takes a fraction of the time typing does, and the details are still fresh. Read the note over before you save it: speech recognition makes mistakes, especially with names it hasn’t learned.
Letters and messages in another language
Screenshots for colleagues and support
A screenshot of a scheduling problem or an error in your records system often shows a patient’s name, phone number or date of birth. SimpleShot’s Hide Sensitive Data finds e-mail addresses and phone numbers on the capture and covers them in one click; for names and other details, use Secure Redact, which replaces the pixels rather than blurring them. Then send the image. It’s free, and everything happens on the Mac.
Secure the Mac itself
- Turn on FileVault in System Settings › Privacy & Security.
- In Lock Screen, require the password immediately after the display turns off.
- In Notifications, set Show previews to When Unlocked, so a patient’s message never shows on a locked screen.
- Give family members their own user account on a shared Mac.
The rest of the list, step by step, is in our guide to Mac privacy settings.
Questions
Is Volna HIPAA compliant?
Compliance is about how a practice handles patient information, so no app can claim it on its own. What Volna changes is the vendor question: it never receives your audio or text, because recognition happens on your Mac and there is no server involved. Securing the Mac is up to you.
Do I need a business associate agreement with Stillbyte?
We never receive, store or transmit patient information: our apps have no server for your notes, recordings or documents. Your compliance officer decides whether your practice needs anything in writing.
Can I dictate straight into my electronic health records?
Yes, if the system has a text field. Volna types into any app or web page where the cursor is; without the optional Accessibility permission, it puts the text on the clipboard for you to paste.
Does dictation handle medical vocabulary?
Common terms, yes. For drug names, rare conditions and colleagues’ names, add them to Volna’s dictionary once, and it spells them right from then on.