Your favorite restaurant might have a BYOB (bring your own bottle) policy, but have you ever heard of BYOD? If you haven’t, it might be coming to a workplace near you soon. The acronym means “bring your own device” and refers to the ability of employees to incorporate their own smartphones and tablets into the office. Already, more than 80 percent of workplaces give their employees permission to connect their mobile devices to the company network. The health care industry has also jumped on the bandwagon. This means that medical service providers are now communicating with other specialists about patient-related issues on their smartphones and tablets. As convenient and time-saving as this trend may well be, it contains some serious risks as well. Read on to learn more.
The chief problem centers on the nature of the information being shared. It is, in fact, private patient information, data that is protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Because data breaches have become disturbingly frequent in the last few years, it is not inconceivable to fear that one of these could happen to your patients’ confidential information. If that occurred, it would compromise not only the person’s data, but also it would put the medical facility out of HIPAA compliance and subject it to a time-consuming and potentially costly audit. This underscores the need for enhanced security, including HIPAA compliant texting.
The built-in camera technology that turns mobile phones into conduits to social media pages can be a problem as well. In a flash, patient information can be photographed and transmitted to a social media site. To prevent this from happening, a device is currently being designed that will upload a photo to a patient’s record and immediately delete it from the phone. In a similar vein, text messages can quickly go off the rails and out into cyberspace, either inadvertently or by design. To prevent this danger, HIPAA compliant texting platforms such as HippoMSG are now in wide use. These applications allow for secure communications among all members of the treatment team. Best of all, the platform is constantly updated for optimal security, and it is free of charge.
Perhaps your workplace does not yet have a BYOD policy; perhaps it does. Either way, you are sure to hear this term in the near future. When you do, take all of the necessary steps to ensure that the personal data you share is secure.
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