HIPAA Secure Texting

Inside Secure Messaging: Preventing Miscommunication With mHealth

October 21, 2015 | Uniphy Health

Secure messaging solutions promote collaborative care models by enabling users to quickly communicate and coordinate care decisions. With secure texting, physicians and clinicians send and receive sensitive patient health information on the go. Compared to emails, secure messaging is an instantaneous form of communication. Phone calls are equally as instantaneous, but more intrusive than communicating via secure text, particularly for physicians.

Due to the time sensitive nature of patient care, it’s imperative that secure texting apps have built-in features that inform physicians and clinicians of when their messages are sent, delivered and read. Secure messaging apps that deliver read receipts and message reminders circumvent delays in communication. Rather than sending a follow up text or call to physicians, residents and other care team members can continue their workflows while the app sends follow up notifications and reminders on their behalf. In this way, read receipt features initiate faster response rates. Surgical teams using secure texting, for instance, found that average response times fell from 30 minutes to 5 minutes.

 

Secure messaging app with message receipt and delivery confirmation features enable coordinated care improvements by:

  • Minimizing or eliminating time spent initiating follow up calls. For residents and other clinicians who must frequently liaise with consultants and attendings little to no time is spent wondering whether their messages are received. Message delivery confirmations minimize any ambiguity that may encourage users to spend time calling to confirm that their message was delivered.
  • Improving the reliability of message recipients. Knowing that message senders can see when their messages have (or haven’t) been read, recipients are far more inclined to read and immediately respond to messages.
  • Forming an Auditable communication trail. Secure texting solutions enable administrators to monitor usage rates and audit communication trails, when necessary. With this information, they can identify which users need follow up training to boost utilization and efficiency gains.

Message read receipts and response reminders make communicating with care team members inside and outside of the care setting less strenuous. Coordinating consults, lab results, diagnoses, discharges and more are all accelerated over secure text communication lines. Secure texting is a more reliable form of communication than those healthcare organizations have traditionally relied upon (email, pagers and voice communication included). Their built-in confirmation features prevent miscommunication that leads to delays in care.

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