It took several years after the passage of HIPAA for institutions to realize that the exchange of PHI through devices like pagers represents a HIPAA violation like any other unsecure exchange. Healthcare now realizes that pagers not only put institutions in the position of potentially violating HIPAA statutes, pagers also impede effective communications, lengthen hospital stay for patients and increase the expense of patient care. We recently covered the benefits of HIPAA-compliant messaging in a white paper but the aim of this blog is to look into the HIPAA compliant messaging definition and to see how one can maintain HIPAA compliant messaging at their medical institution.
HIPAA-compliant messaging describes the exchange of text messages containing protected health information (PHI) of patients. Messages containing PHI must follow the mandates of the 1996, 2003 and 2013 HIPAA legislation passed by Congress which requires:
Since 2013, HIPAA compliant messaging has gained importance among healthcare providers as legislation has since spelled out the conditions under which it was possible to exchange PHI between healthcare professionals. Since that time, hospitals have increasingly realized that exchange of PHI via pagers risks a HIPAA violation and a significant fine. Additionally, by exchanging PHI via pagers, the patient information can be accessed by unauthorized third parties and be used to defraud patients and their healthcare providers.
Today, healthcare institutions are moving to HIPAA-compliant messaging applications that provide secure messaging and uphold the mandates of HIPAA.
HIPAA compliant messaging means that the messaging containing patient information, care instructions or any other relevant patient information must be both secure and encrypted. When hospitals and clinics introduce HIPAA compliant messaging into their organization, they must maintain reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards for protecting e-PHI. Department of Health and Human Services states that organizations must provide the following:
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