Encrypted messaging software reduces the healthcare businesses’ liability by protecting sensitive patient data and minimizing financial and legal risks.

Here’s what you need to know about how this software falls in with HIPPA compliance. 

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 was specifically designed to protect patient information and data. American healthcare organizations need to comply with the rules that are set out in this legislation. 

For example, The HIPAA Security Rule is very clear about how it establishes American standards protecting individuals’ health and personal electronic information. Healthcare providers essentially need to do several different things to make sure their encrypted messaging software is in line. These include:

• Ensuring that their workforce and staff are compliant.
• Making sure that all the data is reasonably protected against disclosures and hacks.
• Identifying and protecting that data against reasonably anticipated malware and threats.
• The security rule also requires that data must be maintained in a confidential manner. 

Here’s how encrypted messaging software accomplishes those goals. 

The best providers will supply an encryption that ensures only your recipient and you will be able to see the contents of any email or text transmission. The proper encrypted software helps healthcare providers meet the strict regulatory requirements including minimizing the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access.

Big Bonus 

Another big bonus is the fact that the data integrity is maintained. With the proper tools the information won’t change during transmission and it’s even possible in some circumstances for employees to use personal devices without compromising security.

Shared in the Workforce 

However, there are some HIPAA policies that carefully regulate how healthcare data can be shared by members of the workforce. For example, any platform using this type of messaging on personal devices needs to give the healthcare professional the ability to set user access permissions.

It’s important to keep in mind here that most chat apps and messaging apps are not HIPPA compliant. Popular platforms on that list include Zoom because the video calls there do not to have end to end encryption. The same can be said for WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Central Data Storage understands how important encrypted messaging software is to healthcare and other industries. Why not get in touch with us today to experience the peace of mind of our encrypted messaging software which includes installation and setup with all of our plans?