What is Secure Messaging and Why Do You Need It?
If you're a medium or large company, you need to make sure you can communicate securely. Here is everything you need to know about secure messaging and why your company needs it.
With the average data breach costing nearly $4 million, it's essential to make sure that you're protected at every level of your office or medical facility. That includes everything from the physical servers that house your client and patient data to the messaging app that you share information with at your office.
Secure messaging apps are applications that allow you to send data that stays encrypted from sender to receiver without anyone able to intercept it. There are a huge variety of options and available services in 2018 which we won't get into, apart from our assured messaging services. We want to focus more on the why vs the how to help save you from some unecessary trouble as you and our customers navigate secure communicate.
So without further delay, here are 5 reasons you should be using secure messaging at your facility.
1. Share Patient Information When Needed
One of the easiest ways to put your foot right into a HIPAA violation is to share your client or patient information via an insecure channel. You could do this over an email account that gets hacked or by chatting openly walking down the hall past other patients.
HIPAA allows patients to keep their information from being disclosed to anyone they don't want to share it with. HIPAA also protects you from information requests that could lead to trouble. But without a proper channel for sharing information with your staff, on-site or off-site, processes could take longer or become unnecessarily convoluted.
A secure messaging service or application means that you can share the information you need with the right people without worrying about violations. When you have the ability to share information quickly, you can send or receive important results at a moment's notice, keeping staff or patients informed and protected.
If time is of the essence, a patient may not be able to wait for treatment. If they've just been informed of a vital medication allergy, they and you can take action immediately. You'll know that everyone was correctly and quickly informed with the help of assured messaging.
2. Protect Employee Data
Your employee data is just as important as your patient information. Employees working at a facility could be sought out for legal repercussions by anyone who is displeased with that they've heard from test results. Rather than leaving your employees open to being harassed or attacked by the work they do, protect them with secure messaging.
Secure messaging also protects employees who are a little more negligent when it comes to their own security. Employees might purchase things with their credit cards over your network or send out their passwords. They might even use simple, easy to guess, unencrypted passwords for important company-wide infrastructure.
If they're leaving you vulnerable, protect yourself against that. While the quality of service you provide is up to your employees and staff, they shouldn't be trusted to keep your facility secure. Take matters into your own hands with secure messaging that keeps nefarious actors out.
3. Protect Your Reputation
Your reputation depends on being a trusted service provider to your clients and patients. Nothing says you can be trusted like a secure data management practice. When you allow your information to be accessed by hackers or bad actors, you give up your ability to say that you care about security.
When you suffer a data breach, your reputation ends up on the line. You'll be seen as an office or facility that's careless with customer information.
If you happen to service community leaders or members of the public who have a well known, they need you to protect their information. While it's uncouth for political opponents to use medical or personal information against someone, once that information is out there, you can't put it back.
If a celebrity client doesn't want everyone to know about a delicate medical procedure that they went through, it's up to you to protect that information. Your reputation and theirs are reliant on protecting their information.
4. Have Quick Follow-ups
When you have a meeting, you might need to have a quick follow-up to see if everyone is on the same page. When you're discussing sensitive matters, internally or about patients, you need to ensure that your offline conversations are protected.
The ability to have a messaging application that everyone in the office uses makes it easier to communicate. When you can pop in and ask a quick question without leaving your desk, you can work faster and more efficiently than having to get up and walk over.
If you've been waiting on a message for a while, assured messaging ensures that your message is escalated. If you need follow-ups or someone needs a follow up with you, assured messaging will ensure no high-priority calls get dropped.
Large companies might have offices on multiple floors. That makes it a bit of a task to get over to the people who you need to talk to when you need information. A secure messaging app can move through your network in an instant, rather than making you wait to get the information you need.
There's no need to doubt whether or not everyone is on the same page when you've used a secure assured messaging service.
5. Rest Assured with Assured Messaging
Having a HIPPA compliant message and answering service with secure messaging ensures that the correct person has read the message you need them to read. Sent to the secure line, assured messages will allow your contacts to give notice that they've received and reviewed messages without any extra work.
When you have assured messaging, you'll have peace of mind and be able to skip the steps of confirming reciept. If the receiver is busy or ill, you'll still know they got the message you sent.
Choose our assured messaging to ensure your messages are secure and received like you need them to be.
Secure Messaging Protects Clients and Staff
No matter what kind of facility you're running, your clients and staff deserve to have their communications and private information protected. When you communicate over an encrypted channel, you can ensure you're keeping anyone from being charged with leaking information. Secure messaging protects everyone.
If you're in the midst of a major expansion, check out our guide to see if an answering service could help you and your company.
