Multi-Account AWS Architecture: Isolating PHI Workloads Without Slowing Down Engineering Teams

The useful part

Most engineering teams working on healthtech applications reach a point where someone asks a question that sounds simple but isn't: How do we make sure a developer testing a new feature can't accidentally access production patient data? The answer determines whether the architecture that follows will be auditable or not.

How it works

• Teams that answer it with process — "we have policies about that" — spend the next 18 months patching access-control gaps that reopen every time a new engineer joins or a new service gets wired in.
• Teams that answer it architecturally spend a week setting up AWS Organizations correctly and then largely stop thinking about it.