I Wonder Where This Mechanism Fits Into The Framework Of Clinical Data Sharing?

This appeared last week:

More clinicians are texting, but far fewer hospitals offer a secure messaging app

by Evan Sweeney  

Jul 21, 2017 1:24pm

Although most clinicians still use pagers, text messaging is gaining traction despite security concerns.

As more clinicians gravitate toward text messaging to communicate patient information, hospitals aren’t keeping pace with appropriate security protocols.

Pagers continue to be the most popular form of communication among hospital-based clinicians, but more than half are using standard text messaging for patient care-related communication, according to a survey published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

However, just 27% of respondents said their organization had implemented a secure messaging application that some clinicians were using. Just 7% said most clinicians were using a hospital-issued messaging app.

Physicians have previously underscored the “unprecedented convenience” of text messaging while acknowledging the myriad privacy concerns that go along with transmitting unencrypted information. Researchers have also raised patient safety concerns associated with secure messaging apps that run into connectivity delays and network latency.

More here:

http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/mobile/more-clinicians-are-texting-but-few-hospitals-have-a-secure-messaging-app

With the ubiquity of both smart phones and secure messaging apps it seems only sensible to explore where such apps might fit and how they might interact with other messaging and information sources.

Maybe the ADHA could ask the SMD taskforce once they have decided on a more stationary system based strategy that is hopefully not too .pdf rich.

David.