You Have a Choice for Sending Secure Messages

By Wayne Scaggs

There are many secure messaging companies that sell their products to the medical community. Below is a list of companies that have penetration in the same medical customer base that our industry serves. The following companies were asked to describe their secure messaging product. Here are their responses.

OnPage, by Onset Technology, is a cloud-based, encrypted, priority messaging service available for iOS, Android, and Blackberry devices. OnPage delivers time-critical messages into a dedicated inbox with a prominent alert until acknowledged and a time-stamped audit trail. The secure, HIPAA-compliant system also sends delivery and read notifications to the sender for assurance. OnPage can be augmented with a Web-based Enterprise Management Console, enabling organizations to manage critical communications from a centralized location and follow the status of messages. Enterprises can create thousands of users within minutes, assign users groups, and create escalation rules for efficient messaging. Learn more at www.onpage.com.

TigerConnect, by TigerText, is a leading secure messaging platform that enables one-to-one communication between systems or among users. By using TigerConnect’s open APIs, teleservice clients can send secure real-time messages from their own software (via SMTP or WCTP) to end users’ mobile devices with all aspects of the messages encrypted, including photo and file attachments. It provides a simple method to communicate with clients via their preferred method of texting while also meeting compliance requirements. Learn more at www.tigertext.com.

Answering Service Care focuses on the underlying technologies to ensure the highest quality experience for customers; by building a secure messaging platform, a framework is created for nothing less than the reinvention of the answering service. Here’s how it works: A message is received by the answering service. Based on the on-call rules calendar, the message is dispatched. An SMS is sent to the client’s cell phone. This alerts the client, advising them to click a secure link. When they click the link, if they have already logged in once, they will be taken to the message. They can click to confirm receipt and stop the dispatch process. Learn more at www.answeringservicecare.net.

DocbookMD is a rapidly growing HIPAA-secure communication solution for the healthcare industry available for smartphones, tablets, and on the Web. Facilitating powerful care coordination, DocbookMD’s dynamic directory capabilities connect physicians to staff, care teams, and to each other, as well as directly to a variety of clinical integration partners. Through their unique clinical integrations, DocbookMD allows medical teams to attach images, dictate messages, or directly connect over their API. With the ability to quickly send admit, discharge, and transfer documents, DocbookMD helps hospitals, groups, and enterprises streamline workflows to and from physicians. Learn more about DocbookMD.

GroupMD’s ability to communicate securely is critical to the smooth functioning of healthcare delivery. Most secure messaging systems are intended for use within a given institution. GroupMD enables secure messaging across institutions, allowing self-sign up of community physicians. Moving beyond this, GroupMD is becoming Flow Health, which allows capture of patient data around messaging and longitudinal creation of health records. It also allows sending of admission/discharge/transfer notifications from hospitals and emergency departments to community physicians, as well as case managers and home health agencies, all in a secure, HIPAA-compliant fashion. Learn more at flowhealth.com.

Twistle is redefining healthcare communication by securely connecting diverse stakeholders, including providers, payers, labs, home health agencies, and support services such as answering services and clinical scribes. Twistle is a new and powerful app that enables providers to aggregate all their day-to-day communication in one place. Twistle enables text messaging, picture messaging, and collaboration between doctors, their colleagues, and even patients right from their smartphone. Built from the ground up to be a truly mobile healthcare experience, Twistle meets all federal requirements for doctor-to-doctor, doctor-to-patient, and answering-service-to-doctor correspondence. The app is fully HIPAA-compliant, certified under Meaningful Use Stage 2, and integrated natively with answering service software and EHRs. Learn more at www.twistle.com.

The good news is you don’t have to choose just one: look at the back cover of this issue of Connections Magazine to learn more.

Wayne Scaggs is president of Alston Tascom, Inc., which offers premised-based and hosted contact center solutions.

[From Connection Magazine Jul/Aug 2014]

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