Healthcare IT Update

99% of Physicians Are Wired: Why Aren’t They All Talking to Patients?

According to a new report published by Manhattan Research, certain specialties are more likely to communicate online with their patients. In “Physicians in 2012: The Outlook on Health Information Technology,” Manhattan Research reports that dermatologists and medical oncologists connect most often with their patients via email and online messaging. The top five specialist groups who communicate most online also include neurologists, endocrinologists, and infectious disease specialists. Overall, 39% of surveyed physicians email, secure message, or instant message their patients, which is a 14% increase since 2006, according to the report.

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Sending PHI Via Email? How to Make Sure It Stays Safe

Look at alternatives to encryption when you deem them necessary. An email that contains a patient’s protected health information (PHI) can be completely harmless —unless it falls into the wrong hands. But fortunately, there are a few ways that you can head off potential email security breaches. Although many health care providers have started encrypting their emails, you aren’t specifically required to do so yet. As the interim final rule published in the Aug. 24 Federal Register indicates, that “a covered entity may be in compliance with the [HIPAA] Security Rule even if it reasonably decides not to encrypt electronic PHI and instead uses a comparable method to safeguard the information.” Several readers have inquired what might constitute a “comparable method,” and some even asked why this is required in the first place. And we’ve got your answers here …

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