Utilizing Secure Texting for Efficient, Simple Communications
Athena health recently partnered with OhMD to bring secure texting options to patients and physicians, while remaining HIPAA compliant.
June 13, 2017 - Maintaining HIPAA compliance in provider-to-patient communication and even in physician-to-physician communication is critical, which is why secure texting has increased in popularity.
With technology evolving, organizations cannot afford to compromise PHI through SMS texting or an unsecured email. However, covered entities also desire a simple and efficient way to transfer information that does not hinder daily workflow.
athenahealth, Inc. recently partnered with OhMD to utilize the secure texting platform in the athenahealth More Disruption Please (MDP) program. The application will be available to athenahealth’s network of providers and can improve communication between patients, physicians, and healthcare professionals, according to athenahealth Product Operations Senior Associate Alicia Barlow.
“We partner with these innovative solutions to help our healthcare professionals thrive in the face of industry change in pressure,” Barlow told HealthITSecurity.com. “Our mission is to be the healthcare internet.”
“We work with these partners and want to make them available to our clients for any of their needs that athena isn’t able to fulfill so they’re able to have the most holistic experience as an athenahealth client.”
OhMD’s secure texting platform allows for a variety of communications, including but not limited to patient-to-practice texting, physician-to-physician, and appointment reminders and follow-up.
“HIPAA compliant texting solves so many pain points around inefficient conversations that happen today in healthcare,” OhMD CEO and Co-founder Ethan Bechtel explained to HealthITSecurity.com. “Texting continues to replace phone calls in our consumer lives – because it’s efficiency and simplicity. OhMD addresses the same pain points in healthcare, around voicemails, phone tag, and all of the challenges around communication within a practice.”
Bechtel added that having a HIPAA compliant secure texting platform can fit into any healthcare conversation that is not face-to-face communication. It is a more efficient form of communication than nearly every other option in the healthcare space.
While healthcare organizations understand HIPAA compliance and why they need to ensure ePHI security, Bechtel stated that many entities buy solutions that are not designed with the end user in mind.
“We see a lot of physicians that have access to use these apps designed by HIPAA compliant communication, but they continue to fall back on SMS messaging and WhatsApp because they’re just so much easier consumer products, even though they’re not HIPAA compliant,” he maintained.
“It’s about really focusing on any user experience and making sure we create something that’s frictionless,” Bechtel continued. “It is the way that you get people to communicate in a secure way and still remain efficient and providing value to the end user.”
Bechtel stressed that HIPAA regulations are still a very important part of that end user experience, but the application doesn’t matter if the users aren’t using it. Organizations need to make it so that there’s value for the end users to utilize an application, which is also simple to use in the first place.
In terms of simplicity, any new technology must be simple to use, Bechtel advised. Physicians and healthcare staff members – and even patients – will likely not be interested in any product that is overly complicated.
“What generally ends up happening is, at least in our solution, we end up replacing a lot of the phone calls that a practice receives,” he explained. “Up front it may seem like ‘We don’t know how this is going to work.’ But ultimately the application replaces a lot of the same questions that happen when a patient calls a practice. It’s just being done more efficiently.”
That message needs to be conveyed in the employee training process, Bechtel added. From there, staff members are able to find best ways to utilize the secure texting options.
“We don’t usually have to spend a lot of time on teaching people how to use the platform,” he said. “It’s more about how to think about the use cases for it. It’s a lot more use cases in different practices than we or the practice ever expected to see. Once they have access to a simple way to communicate, they find different ways to get value out of it.”
When healthcare organizations start to consider a secure texting option, Bechtel maintained that it cannot be just about checking off a regulatory box. Instead, entities need to focus on adopting technology that users will actually use.
“Both patients and providers are looking for a solution that is designed for them,” he stated. “If it doesn’t look and feel exactly like texting, user adoption is going to be much more difficult than if it’s a frictionless experience with a minimal learning curve.”
Furthermore, organizations need to recognize how texting works for patients versus just the clinical side of communication. The market is focused on the clinical side, because there is lots of value there.
However, patients are increasingly more likely to want to replace a phone call with a simple messaging option.
“It’s really important as we move toward the consumerization of healthcare, to focus on the patient perspective on communication and how it fits into their world,” he concluded. “There is a lot of frustration with phone calls, voice mails, and phone tag.”
