Role of Secure Messaging
Many home health clinicians use texting to quickly communicate and collaborate with their colleagues and patients. However, an agency places itself and its patients at risk when sending ePHI via unencrypted text messaging. Home health organizations must be compliant and mitigate risk when communicating PHI or face costly fines. Also, healthcare organizations that turn a blind eye to texting in violation of HIPAA can also face civil charges from the patients whose data has been exposed if the breach results in identity theft or other fraud.
Synzi’s Secure Messaging
Home health leaders safeguard their patients’ data and protect their agencies from costly HIPAA violations by using Synzi’s secure messaging function to secure ePHI and improve workflows. Staff can easily and safely communicate and collaborate with colleagues, patients and family caregivers, and other care team members including the referring physician.
Synzi’s secure messaging features:
- Improve provider productivity by eliminating internal phone tag and minimizing the need for in-person meetings
- Enable better case collaboration and care coordination by delivering vitals, wound photos, and other patient information easily and securely amongst colleagues and referring physicians
- Include expanded functionality such as defined care teams, organization-wide groups, persistent alerting, etc.
- Feature Click-to-chat which enables patient-clinician communications without requiring the patient to download an application
- Protect an organization against costly fines for HIPAA breaches
Impact of Secure Messaging
Genesis Home Health and Hospice is one of many agencies which has reported impactful patient outcomes from using Synzi’s secure messaging to improve staff collaboration and case management. Because their patients reside in a remote area, Genesis values how Synzi facilitates secure and real-time collaboration as their clinicians crisscross rural Nevada to deliver patient care. Synzi’s secure messaging helps Genesis’ clinicians:
- Manage digital PHI correspondence
- Streamline care team coordination
- Optimize overall productivity
- Deliver real-time care
This has led to Genesis actively preventing rehospitalizations while improving satisfaction and outcomes for their patients. “Caring for patients across our region requires our clinicians to constantly traverse a very remote area of Northern and Central Nevada,” said Querubin Iguban, MD, MBA (Jun), CEO and Owner of Genesis Home Health and Hospice. “Synzi’s secure messaging enables our clinicians to send images such as a patient’s wound to other clinicians and physicians who can quickly act on PHI regardless of their locations. Synzi helps us provide our patients with higher quality and more timely care while preventing rehospitalizations.”