Today’s health care professionals have a new weapon which allows them to communicate and react quickly in emergency situations: mobile communications. The new generation of smartphones, netbooks and tablets let medical professionals and administrative staff communicate quickly and easily. Sometimes a life can hang in the balance, and being able to contact medical professionals quickly can make the difference. Additionally, the communication of a client’s personal information must be protected, and conversations need to be stored and monitored in case of future inquiries.
All organizations within the healthcare industry (including insurance providers) are bound by the legislation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Part II of the Act, which was established in 1996, establishes the physical and technical guidelines for safeguarding the privacy and security of “Protected Health Information” (PHI) which includes rules for the electronic transmission of patient information. PHI is defined as any information about health status, provision of health care, or payment for health care that can be linked to an individual. The 18 defined Protected Health Information identifiers include names, phone numbers, social security numbers, full-face photographic images and more. Safeguards cover a broad spectrum, from the definition of an emergency mode operations plan, to the physical security of the building storing PHI, to the automatic termination of an electronic session after a predetermined time of inactivity. To the extent that mobile messaging is used to capture or convey PHI, it would fall under these requirements and would need to be archived. Companies who do not follow protocol can face fines of up to $250,000 and other sanctions.
With TextGuard’s Enterprise compliance solutions, all healthcare and insurance companies can make use of SMS and Blackberry BBM & PIN-to-PIN messaging, as well as other mobile communication, while complying with regulations established by HIPAA by storing, monitoring and having the ability to review messages in a secure environment.
