Left to your own devices? 6 reasons to choose secure text messaging for BYOD

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The landscape of clinical communication technology has changed dramatically in recent years, most notably with the rise of AI (artificial intelligence) and its practical use cases. Despite these advancements, many healthcare organizations are seeing slow adoption of their IT tools, leading end-users to prefer their personal devices and consumer messaging applications.

The 2024 Digital Health Most Wired survey reveals that nearly all participants are authorized to use employee-owned smartphones/smartwatches (95%) and laptops (91%) for patient care. The same survey indicates that healthcare organizations are improving bring your own device (BYOD) policies by outlining "acceptable use" (91%), "access control" (88%), and "incident reporting" (83%).

Hospitals often implement BYOD programs and secure instant messaging to improve care team communication. In the latest State of Healthcare Communications report, 63% of participants describe secure messaging as "very important" when managing critical communication.

Given the popularity of secure text messaging in hospitals, it's clear that this technology is not a trend but a necessary step toward reducing communication delays and protecting patient information. Here are six compelling reasons why a secure messaging platform should be part of your hospital's BYOD policy.

1. HIPAA and regulatory compliance

Secure messaging solutions are easy to install and designed to ensure security through end-to-end encryption. If a clinician's device is compromised, the messages are unreadable without encryption keys and do not require mobile device management (MDM) oversight that would wipe your personal information and fix the problem.

Some consumer applications are encrypted but are not HIPAA-compliant. They cannot transmit patient health information (PHI) securely, which puts your hospital at risk of data breaches and hefty fines.

2. Seamless integration with your information systems

Secure messaging software is often designed to integrate with Electronic Health Record (EHR) or Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems, making it easy for healthcare professionals to share patient data, test results, and other critical information. Consumer apps typically don't offer these integrations.

Many secure messaging solutions are also optimized to fit into existing clinical workflows, streamlining communication and decision-making. Consumer apps often lack this level of customization.

3. Unrestricted access to your hospital's directory

A secure enterprise messaging application allows hospital employees to find on-call clinicians by role without storing their contact information on their devices. Consumer messaging applications don't offer this convenience and require users to build individual contacts for each person that needs to be reached.

What happens if you need to reach a specific doctor during a time-sensitive event, such as a sepsis response, and you don't have their information stored as a contact? What if you have the wrong contact information? Secure enterprise messaging software can prevent these scenarios with uninterrupted communication.

4. Separation of personal and professional information

When using consumer messaging applications, you're required to provide your personal phone number to anybody in your health system who needs to communicate with you. Secure messaging solutions are based on name look-ups instead, protecting these sensitive details and creating a better work-life balance at your healthcare organization.

Furthermore, when using a secure messaging platform, clinicians can mark themselves as "unavailable" to signal that they are on vacation or not on call. Without this feature, others may send them messages and not realize that they aren't getting a quick reply. This is especially essential during time-sensitive situations when patients need immediate care from their physicians.

5. Easy organization with a specific inbox and unique notifications

Consumer messaging applications are usually designed to store all messages in one place and present them in the same way, making it difficult for clinicians to identify and prioritize critical communication from their co-workers.

A secure messaging platform will only show work-related messages in the inbox and notify them with a distinct sound and pop-up.

Users can also determine if their work-related notifications override their Do Not Disturb (Android) or Muted Device (iOS) settings, which silences other notifications. Your employees can then save valuable time while having a distinct separation between their professional and personal lives.

6. Audit trails and communication records

Secure messaging solutions include detailed logs and audit trails for all communications, which are essential for monitoring and compliance in healthcare environments.

Consumer messaging applications don't provide this information, which can be critical during internal quality assurance, potential medical malpractice investigations, and more.

From meeting compliance standards to providing comprehensive records, a secure messaging service provides multiple benefits over consumer counterparts. Empowering your employees with seamless communication helps your hospital improve care coordination and enhance patient experiences.

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