Feb 10
2015
Secure Messaging: A Top Healthcare Issue In 2015
Dr. Jose Barreau is the chairman and CEO, Doc Halo.
Health IT advancements have become a very important part of the doctor-to-doctor and doctor-to-staff communication channel, and secure text messaging is a very important tool that allows physicians to streamline vital tasks. In busy environments like hospitals, the need for efficient and real-time communication touch points between doctors and staff promotes better patient care, increases productivity and reduce expenses. Over time, innovations like secure text messaging have made healthcare workflow much faster and safer.
Why secure texting is an important element for improving doctor communication channels
A streamlined mobile health platform makes it easy for doctors to use many different communication tools, such as secure texting. Secure texting features can allow senders to create separate threads when conversing with another doctor about multiple patients, providing a platform that reduces medication errors and maintains HIPAA compliance at the same time. As an overall strategy, physician-to-physician messages, notes between doctors and nurses, managers or other staff, checking on and scheduling appointments or video/photo consultations with specialists works alongside secure messaging to create an optimal mobile health system.
What’s more, doctors can accomplish more tasks during their time on the floor because they don’t have to lose time searching for phone numbers. Scrambling to find an office or hospital’s number following a traditional page adds complexity and reduces valuable response time.
Secure messaging can also improve referrals between doctors by leveraging the organization’s internal database and giving the physician the ability to easily send that person a message seeking to refer a patient in real time. Names can be organized by specialty and then aligned in an organizational directory so physicians can access the individuals they need without hassle.