If we mentioned HIPAA, you know we are talking about healthcare. HIPAA, or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, sets the standards and rules intended to protect health information and control the disclosure of Protected Health Information.
Today, the healthcare industry is increasingly adopting digital communication solutions. Telemedicine, or the remote provision of medical services with the help of communication software, is becoming more and more widespread.
There are multiple reasons for that – the need to bring quality healthcare to remote regions, the narrowing of medical specialization when there are not many experts in a certain area, and the necessity to reduce healthcare costs. The Covid-19 pandemic also played a significant role in the popularity of telemedicine, as it led to physical contact restrictions while raising the demand for doctor’s services.
In these conditions, healthcare providers take advantage of different chat and messaging solutions allowing them to consult with patients remotely and share their medical data with colleagues. This is where HIPAA comes in, as all such communications are subject to HIPAA rules.
Find out more about: HIPAA Compliant Cloud Hosting: What does it mean?
What is a HIPAA Compliant Chat App?
To ensure you have a HIPAA compliant chat app, an app must follow HIPAA regulations and implement the required safeguards:
- Technical safeguards, such as data encryption, firewalls, and protection against malware.
- Physical safeguards, represented by controlled access to actual locations of data centers storing patient data.
- Administrative safeguards, including flows, policies, personnel training, and other administrative measures intended to ensure data security.
Adherence to these standards allows an app to be considered HIPAA compliant and safe for use in the healthcare industry.
Find out more about: HIPAA Approved Video Conferencing
Top HIPAA compliant chat apps
If you are looking for a HIPPA chat app to integrate into your healthcare solution, we have researched the market for the apps that have implemented all the measures required by HIPAA to ensure strong protection of patient data.
OhMD
OhMD is a messaging solution specially designed for healthcare providers. Through OhMD, doctors can have online conversations both with patients and their colleagues exchanging medical information in a secure, protected space.
OhMD supports text and video chat, thus enabling doctors to hold effective patient consultations wherever they are. The app also allows sharing various types of files in cases when more than one doctor or clinic is involved in patient treatment.
OhMD took steps to ensure they provide HIPAA compliant chat software through entering into a BAA (Business Associate Agreement), implementing required data encryption and other security measures, and training personnel.
Q-Consultation
Q-Consultation by QuickBlox is a full-featured HIPAA compliant telehealth app that can perform all the functions necessary to provide quality telemedicine services. With Q-Consultation, doctors and clinics can both consult patients in real-time via text chats and video calls and manage multiple administrative activities.
Q-Consultation is a perfect solution as both a standalone telemedicine application and an embeddable solution. Healthcare organizations can use Q-Consultation to enhance their existing network and add high-performance and secure doctor-patient communication to the scope of their services. At the same time, Q-Consultation offers a set of features sufficient to provide a complete medical service, from virtual waiting rooms and queue management to online video consultations. You can also schedule appointments, create patient profiles, make notes before, during, and after video consultations, share and receive attachments, and safely record and store saved video sessions.
Q-Consulation was developed in strict compliance with the HIPAA rules and standards. QuickBlox pays special attention to the security requirements needed for healthcare software solutions and takes measures to ensure protection of patient data. The solution can be hosted on-premise. The app offers a flexible choice of supported platforms having both web and mobile versions which run perfectly on a range of mobile devices as well as a desktop app.
Q-Consultation is highly customizable and, therefore, can be seamlessly integrated into your healthcare networks and mobile apps. You will get a robust communication app that fits perfectly into your existing infrastructure with QuickBlox’s powerful functionality under the hood.
Find out more about, Doctor-Patient Communication with Q-Consultation
Artera (formerly WELL Health)
Artera is another messaging solution developed for telehealth. The platform can handle multiple remote healthcare use cases, such as appointment scheduling and reminding, virtual patient consulting, payment management, surveys, and many more.
Artera can optimize doctors’ workload by reducing patient no-shows through appointment reminders. This way, the valuable time of healthcare experts is spent with the maximum productivity.
At the same time, Artera offers effective remote healthcare options. Doctors can communicate with patients in text and video chats providing the same quality of medical services as during personal visits.
Artera is offered as a HIPAA compliant solution which currently exists only in a web version. This may be a serious drawback, as many people prefer important apps to be available in their mobile devices.
Luma Health
Luma Health positions itself as a Patient Engagement Platform. It supports every step of the patient journey in their interaction with healthcare providers – from appointment scheduling to online consultations.
For doctor-patient communication, Luma Health offers secure HIPAA compliant chat that requires no app installation or login. In the chat, patients can message their doctors and receive consultations, look up their test results, and check their prescriptions.
TigerConnect
TigerConnect is a platform supporting not only communication but also healthcare team collaboration. It offers truly rich messaging options with private and group chats, priority messaging and role-based messaging.
In addition to doctor-patient communication where patients can receive professional consultations both in the text and video format, TigerConnect offers a space for medical professionals to connect and collaborate. This way, healthcare teams become better synchronized and productive and can make informed decisions.
TigerConnect is on our list of HIPAA-compliant chat apps because its developers took all the required measures to protect patient information. The app uses data encryption, access management, and a secure authentication system.
MedChat
MedChat is a communication solution for healthcare companies of various types and sizes, from private practices and pharmacies to large clinics. It offers a variety of chat features – live chat, messaging, chatbot.
MedChat provides communication for all sorts of healthcare use cases – call center, patient screening and triage, appointment scheduling, billing. Of course, the solution can be used as a telemedicine medium connecting patients and doctors for medical consultations.
MedChat implements all the required security mechanisms to ensure HIPAA compliance. Data is encrypted both in transit and at rest, and a number of other safeguards are in place, too, such as an access management system and two-factor user authentication.
Backline
Backline by DrFirst is another healthcare communication and collaboration platform that earned a mention in our list as a secure chat solution. Backline creates a secure space for medical professionals collaboration as well as a secure channel for patients to reach healthcare providers.
Backline offers a range of communication services, such as private and group chat, data transfer, file exchange. Via Backline, patients can receive quality medical care, while healthcare professionals can optimize their workflows using real-time messaging and quick data exchange.
The app ensures HIPAA compliance and takes care to prevent patient data disclosure. Backline has passed SOC-2 certification confirming the app trustworthiness.
Choosing a HIPAA-compliant chat app for a healthcare provider
As you can see from our list, the choice of secure and high-performance chat applications is quite broad. If you are looking for an app that will serve your healthcare organization properly while ensuring strong protection of sensitive health-related data, consider each solution as a complex product.
Evaluate the features it offers together with the security mechanisms it has on board. Only the combination of advanced chat features and HIPAA-compliant protection measures can be the right choice for a healthcare provider.
For example, Q-Consultation by QuickBlox meets all the requirements to be a messaging app for the healthcare industry. Its advanced chat and video calling features, flexible customization, and multi-platform support make Q-Consultation a perfect solution for healthcare organizations and medical professionals. The measures taken to ensure HIPAA compliance turn Q-Consultation into a secure messaging solution that can serve healthcare providers of any scale.
If you would like to learn more about HIPAA-compliant healthcare solutions or need more information about QuickBlox’s products created for use by medical service providers, contact us, we will be happy to help.
