How to Select a Secure Messaging Platform

Communication is the foundation of effective care coordination. In the patient-centric care model, the circle of care team must be able to quickly reach each other and exchange information securely. However, this is not always the case.

In a 2015 Joint Commission study, 70% of treatment delays and sentinel events are attributable to a communication breakdown. Mobile technologies can help. Read five ways to improve hospital communication and increase efficiency.

Physicians have increasingly adopted the use of smartphones and tablets. Most doctors have a smartphone (99%) and a tablet (74%) and find it ‘useful’ at work (93%) according to a 2015 study. Nurses are also adopting new technologies as 95% own a smartphone, 65% own a tablet, and 53% find it ‘useful’ at work according to the same study.

Various smartphone features are useful in helping them perform their clinical duties. Over 80% of physicians use it for phone calling, web browsing, email, calendar and SMS messaging. Three of the five most used features are for communication.

doctors & nurses tech stats

Mobile devices however, are susceptible to security breaches. The increase of mobile technology use and cloud technologies have increased data privacy breaches and leaks.

In fact, 52% of surveyed healthcare organisations say that the number of data breaches caused by mobile devices has increased in the past 12 months. When it comes to the enterprise-level frameworks, 63% of surveyed healthcare organizations believe that mobile devices are the weakest link in their enterprise security framework.