Tag: John Ackerly

Health IT Startup: Virtru

Virtru allows user to choose when to keep their digital content private and secure even after it’s shared online. Manage and revoke access to emails, photos, files and other content at any time, right from within your favorite programs like Gmail, Outlook, and Mac Mail on your desktop or smartphone. The TDF is an open standard for securing content of all kinds. Virtru gives everyone the power of the TDF by integrating it with the tools you use every day, like Gmail and Outlook.

Elevator pitch

Virtru Pro makes it dead simple for physician practices and other organizations to easily, conveniently, and cost-effectively send PHI messages and files over email while complying with HIPAA. While hospital medical record systems often include a secure messaging component that supports safe communications, many organizations prefer to use regular email or do not want to incur the cost and complexity of heavyweight systems. This is especially true for small to mid-sized practices that have fewer financial or IT resources available to them. Virtru Pro is easy to set up and easy to use for doctors, administrative staff, and patients. 

Product/service description

Virtru Pro is a cost-effective, easy-to-use, HIPAA-compliant email service for the healthcare industry. Offering the easiest, most secure way for healthcare organizations to comply with the Protected Health Information (PHI) requirements of HIPAA, Virtru Pro ensures these communications are secure, protected and integrated into the tools and processes used daily by physicians, administrators and patients:

With Virtru Pro, an entire organization can now easily send and receive secure, PHI-compliant encrypted emails, revoke sent messages, restrict forwarding and set expiry for emails and files to auto delete. Confidential information sent to colleagues and patients remains private, audit ready, and protected. Virtru Pro eliminates the risk of patient data being inadvertently forwarded to an unintended party and provides added controls so that physicians can determine how their patients’ health information is viewed and shared.

Virtru Pro works with all major email systems and is especially well suited to organizations using cloud-based email providers such as Google Apps for Work, Gmail and Microsoft Office 365.

Founders’ story

Will and John Ackerly

Virtru was founded to bring true digital privacy to everyone – making end-to-end email encryption dead simple to use and integrated into the products people use every day.

CTO and co-founder, Will Ackerly, spent eight years at the NSA in various positions of senior management where as a cloud security architect he developed the standard for secure data transfer used today by various government agencies – The Trusted Data Format (TDF). He left the NSA to bring this technology to the consumer market, where he saw a real need for people to have control over the privacy and protection of their personal information online. As a senior technology adviser for the Bush White House, before and after the events of 911 followed by six years in the private equity business, co-founder and CEO John Ackerly also saw a real need to provide individuals with the power to protect their digital communications. Combining the technical knowledge and know-how brought by Will with the-on-the-ground experience of John has resulted in a perfect storm that is Virtru.

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