It is important that physicians be able to communicate while being HIPAA compliant, HIPAA being the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Title two of HIPAA required the establishment of national standards to govern electric health care transactions. The standards are intended to both improve effectiveness and efficiency of the health care system by ensuring the privacy and security of health data. Being able to exchange information electronically is important because even back in the 1990s, doctors were saving up to half an hour every day by prescribing drugs and ordering their lab reports electronically.
What can happen when HIPAA compliant text messaging is not supported by an overarching software system? It is easy for things to go wrong and for information to fall into the wrong hands when people do not have guaranteed secure text messaging. An employee could lose their phone, have it stolen, or improperly dispose of it. Any of these options could potentially allow others to access patient information.
Mobile medical apps that address secure messaging issues basically act as a go between. They encrypt the data on the phone before communicating it to the recipient, then decrypt it again upon reception, thereby ensuring HIPAA compliant text messaging. The importance of mobile health applications that understand the legal and medical needs of doctors and patients cannot be downplayed, since the loss or theft of important medical information could have disastrous implications for doctors, patients, and hospitals alike. HIPAA compliant text messaging software is necessary for those involved in the medical field.