Doctors Increasingly Texting, But HIPAA Protection Lacking

A new study of physicians working at pediatric hospitals has concluded what we might have assumed anyway — that they prefer the use of SMS texting via mobile phone to pagers. What’s worrisome, however, is that little if any of this communication seems to be going on in a HIPAA-secure manner.

The study, by the University of Kansas School of Medicine at Wichita, asked 106 doctors at pediatric hospitals what avenues they prefer for “brief communication” while at work. Of this group, 27 percent chose texting as their favorite method, 23 percent preferred hospital-issued pagers and 21 percent face to face conversation, according to a report in mHealthWatch.

What’s interesting is that text-friendly or not, 57 percent of doctors said they sent or got work-related text messages.  And 12 percent of pediatricians reported sending more than 10 messages per shift.

With all that texting going on,  you’d figure hospitals would have a policy in place to ensure HIPAA requirements were met. But in reality, few doctors said that their hospital had such a policy in place.

That’s particularly concerning considering that 41 percent of respondents said they received work-related text messages on a personal phone, and only 18 percent on a hospital-assigned phone. I think it’s fair to say that this arrangement is rife with opportunities for HIPAA no-nos.

It’s not that the health IT vendor world isn’t aware that this is a problem; I know my colleague John has covered technology for secure texting between medical professionals and he’s also an advisor to secure text messaging company docBeat. However, not much is going to happen until hospitals get worried enough to identify this as a serious issue and they realize that secure text message can be just as easy as regular text along with additional benefits.

In the mean time, doctors will continue texting away — some getting 50-100 messages a day, according to one researcher — in an uncertain environment.  Seems to me this is a recipe for HIPAA disaster.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

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