Introduction
In today’s world, text messaging has become a convenient way for businesses to interact with customers. Healthcare practices are no exception to this trend. In truth, 89% of customers prefer text communication with businesses, and 63% of Americans say they would switch to a company that provides texting as a channel for exchanging information.
TEXTING: A DO OR DON’T FOR DOCTORS?
In healthcare, where treatment plans, wait times, and the reimbursement cycle are primarily complex and intricate, texting offers a simple, viable solution. For clinicians and everyone, it’s easy to communicate without making a call, writing down a message, or even listening.
Yet, for physicians, the good things about texting can also bring harmful consequences. Texting is fast and easy to do, but it is also the most common way for docs to break privacy laws and put themselves at risk for data breaches. Because it creates such significant dangers, does the easy use of texting help doctors?
The Convenience of Texting for Healthcare Professionals
When you want to get a busy doctor’s attention quickly, nothing is better than the immediacy of texting. Not so much time has passed since numerous doctors were connected to pagers for communication purposes. Instead of these, many hospitals and health systems have incorporated texting into their operational processes.
Texting in Healthcare:
Texting is a game-changer for doctors. It lets them enhance their connection with patients, decrease no-shows, and ensure patients receive crucial care. Also, doctor texting is unlike regular texting with friends or family. This is because healthcare has its own set of rules to ensure that protected health information remains secure. And the area of texting in the medical profession also has its regulations. Also, even though there are genuine worries about privacy, one can argue that a text message is comparatively more confidential than spoken phone communication.
The Risks of Texting:
One research study reveals that 94 percent of physicians employ smartphones to communicate, handle personal and professional workflows, and acquire medical data. Also, the small size of smartphone technology makes these devices easy to steal or lose. If a phone that holds PHI ends up in the wrong hands, there might be severe consequences for a doctor who hasn’t been careful about securing his text messages.
Avoid Text Trouble by Using Caution
Notwithstanding certain disadvantages, doctors are likely to use text messaging for official communications as it is convenient and prevalent. Doctors, however, should always take due protective measures, such as setting passwords and enabling remote control options, to avoid any problematic situation. However, there is an issue: for a message to be sent or received securely, the person sending the text and the one receiving it must either be subscribed to this service or possess decryption capability.
Alternate methods for intelligent and safe texting could be checking the content and spelling of your messages (mainly if it’s about something medically serious), always knowing where your device is, and frequently deleting the history of messages.
Conclusion
Texting has undoubtedly revolutionized communication in healthcare since it provides doctors with an easy, fast, and effective way of communicating with patients and other doctors. It establishes communication, optimizes patient care, and assists in minimizing paperwork, which makes it an essential asset in today’s medical practice. However, with the advantages come alarming dangers. Texting is relatively simple, making it easy to violate privacy laws, especially when dealing with patient details. The risks involved are data breaches, lost and stolen devices, and non-adherence to HIPAA regulations.
