We’re quickly seeing HIPAA compliant texting as a standard in healthcare. Certainly there are some organizations that are resisting, but I fear for those healthcare organizations that are letting SMS run rampant in their organization. SMS is not HIPAA compliant and so that’s a real risk for an organization that allows it to go on. However, I’m seeing organizations across the country adopting a secure text messaging solution.
I’ve often said that the best way to solve a problem is to make doing the right thing easy or better than doing the wrong thing. This can easily be applied to HIPAA compliant texting. I outlined 11 reasons why a secure text message solution was better than SMS before and one of those reasons wasn’t the fear of HIPAA. Can someone really argue that SMS is better or acceptable?
Besides the argument that secure text messaging is dramatically better than SMS, the great part is that a plethora of secure text messaging solutions are available that are just as easy as SMS. I’m personally bias to docBeat since I’m an advisor to them and they’ve created a really great product. However, there are lots of other dedicated secure messaging companies including TigerText, docHalo, qliqSoft, and many more. Plus, that doesn’t even include large companies like Imprivata who offer Cortext and even athenahealth’s Epocrates has secure text messaging built into their product.
The day will soon come when a hospital gets hit with a HIPAA violation (possibly during a HIPAA audit) and insecure SMS will be the culprit. Considering the advancements in secure text messaging options, hospitals won’t have anywhere to hide. It’s very clear that there are HIPAA compliant options available and so I can’t imagine they’ll be lenient with organizations that aren’t doing something about it.
I’d love to hear your experience with HIPAA compliant text messaging. Do you use it in your hospital? What do you love or hate about it? Are you still using SMS?
