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What Is a HIPAA-Compliant

Texting App?

A HIPAA-compliant texting app is an application that physicians, nurses, and hospital employees use to exchange patient protected health information (PHI). A HIPAA-compliant texting app must be employed when healthcare employees send messages that contain identifying patient information.

The purpose of a HIPAA-compliant texting app is to enhance clinical team collaboration and communication through a secure, cutting-edge pager replacement platform while still maintaining patient privacy.

Consequences of Not Using a HIPAA-Compliant Texting App

Failure to use a HIPAA-compliant texting app when sending messages to colleagues that contain PHI can constitute HIPAA fines. Indeed, HIPAA officials have cited health facilities for exchanging protected patient information that was neither encrypted nor password protected. When a HIPAA violation is found, the subsequent fine can reach several millions of dollars.

The mandate to protect patient privacy was set into effect by U.S. Congress with the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) that decreed the importance of maintaining patient privacy and ensured its protection.

Since 2013, HIPAA-compliant messaging has gained even more importance as the 2013 legislation increased privacy and security protection for individuals’ personal health. The legislation also increased the penalty for breaches and penalties for noncompliance based on the level of negligence, with a maximum penalty of $1.5 million per violation.

Hospitals have also increasingly realized that exchange of PHI via pagers risks a HIPAA violation and could incur a significant fine. By exchanging PHI via pagers and not through a HIPAA-compliant texting app, sensitive patient information can be accessed by unauthorized third parties and used to defraud patients and their healthcare providers.

Modern healthcare institutions are moving toward a HIPAA-compliant texting app that provides secure messaging and upholds the mandates of HIPAA.

How Do You Maintain HIPAA-Compliant Texting?

Use of a HIPAA-compliant texting app is required when the physician or nurse sends a text or message containing patient information, care instructions or other sensitive patient details. When this type of patient information is sent, the content of the message must be both secure and encrypted.

When hospitals and clinics introduce HIPAA-compliant texting into their organization, they must maintain reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards for protecting electronic protected health information (e-PHI).

The Department of Health and Human Services further spells this out when it states that organizations must:

  • Ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all electronic protected health information which is created, received, maintained or transmitted.
  • Protect against any reasonably anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of this information.
  • Protect against any reasonably anticipated uses or disclosures of this information.
  • Have a method for remote wipe of patient information from the HIPAA-compliant texting app if the app is lost or stolen.
  • Ensure compliance by users of the information.

 

 

 

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The Industry’s Most Reliable HIPAA-Compliant Texting App

OnPage’s HIPAA-compliant texting app for healthcare professionals provides the industry’s only Alert-Until-Read notification capabilities.

The system ensures that critical messages are never missed and rise above the clutter®.

OnPage provides a secure, reliable, fast way to communicate with colleagues for better patient outcomes. Healthcare organizations trust OnPage for all their HIPAA-compliant messaging and alerting needs.

Tour OnPage’s HIPAA-Compliant Texting App

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OnPage Features:

The OnPage HIPAA-compliant texting app enables healthcare providers to easily communicate via encrypted and secure text communication with their employees as well as each other.

With OnPage, care facilities can:

  • Create and manage escalation policies.
  • Receive high-priority notifications that bypass the silent switch on all devices.
  • Adopt intelligent alerts that cut through the noise by bringing critical alerts to the forefront and continuing for up to eight hours until acknowledged.
  • View audit trails to track messages with SENT, DELIVERED and READ receipts.
  • Enable teams to seamlessly manage on-call scheduling with flexible rotations for multiple individuals, ensuring alerts reach the right person at the right time, no matter where they are.
  • Add images and voice attachments to text messages to convey more information, allowing for more informed decisions.
  • Mute OnPage when teams are off duty and do not want to receive alerts.
  • Remotely wipe sensitive patient information

 

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Security & Compliance🔒

  • ✅SOC 2 certified facility
  • ✅ISO 27001-certified facility
  • ✅Full redundancy, audited regularly
  • ✅HIPAA compliant
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  • ✅PCI certified
  • ✅Pen tested yearly
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Start Your Journey to Critical Alerting in Just Minutes

    • What is the best way to securely text patient information in healthcare settings?

      To securely text patient information, healthcare professionals should use a HIPAA-compliant texting app that offers encrypted messaging, access controls, remote wipe capabilities, and audit trails. These secure message apps ensure that protected health information is shared safely and only to authorized individuals, meeting regulatory requirements for data security and patient privacy.

    • Are standard text messages allowed under HIPAA regulations?

      No, standard SMS text messages are not HIPAA-compliant. They lack encryption and security features required to secure protected health information. Healthcare providers must use secure messaging platforms designed to meet HIPAA standards when communicating care instructions, lab results, or any identifiable patient information.

    • How do hospitals ensure their healthcare messaging solutions are HIPAA compliant?

      Hospitals ensure HIPAA compliance by choosing secure communication platforms that offer end-to-end encryption, user authentication, remote wipe capabilities, and message audit trails. They also implement internal policies for secure mobile communication and train medical professionals on data privacy best practices.

    • Can secure texting apps be used with on-call scheduling and urgent alerting?

      Yes, HIPAA-compliant text messaging applications often include features like on-call scheduling, role-based alert routing, and high-priority alerting. These tools help ensure that urgent clinical messages reach the right provider quickly, improving care coordination and reducing response times during critical patient situations.

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