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The Benefits of Using PHI in Patient Communications

Wednesday, March 15th, 2023

Some healthcare organizations do not allow PHI to be sent outside the patient’s health record. However, by allowing your marketing and administrative teams to use PHI in patient communication, you can streamline operations, improve the patient experience, and increase revenue.

Although the healthcare industry is traditionally slow to adopt new technologies, the past few years have rapidly accelerated the shift to digital communications. The reasons for these shifts are varied and will be explored in detail below. No matter the reason, one thing is certain- organizations adapting to the modern digital age are thriving, while those resisting change are falling behind in meeting patient expectations.

Changing Technology Preferences

Rapid technological innovation has made it possible to communicate securely at scale. As broadband access has increased, people are incorporating it into their daily lives. In 2022, 92% of Americans reported using email, and 49% checked it every few hours. Many people now prefer to receive business communications via email because it is asynchronous and can be engaged with when it fits into their schedules.

Healthcare organizations that utilize email for external communication are experiencing better response rates and fewer patient no-shows. Email already fits into the daily lives of many patients and doesn’t require them to take extra steps to receive information about their healthcare journey.

The Rise of Healthcare Consumerism

Healthcare consumerism refers to patients’ personal choices and responsibility in paying for and managing their health. Patients are no longer stuck with one provider or practice. They have more choices than ever and will shop around for new providers if unsatisfied with their experience.

If healthcare providers are not delivering a digital experience that meets patient expectations, they could risk losing patients and revenue.

In addition, as younger generations are taking control of their healthcare, they are used to digital-first experiences that are personalized to their needs. If organizations are unwilling to invest into personalized digital patient experiences, they will not adequately serve the next generation of healthcare consumers.

Staffing Challenges

The healthcare industry is not immune to recent staffing challenges. Staffing shortages have left fewer employees available to do more tasks, including patient care. Introducing digital technology into your patient communication strategy can help automate and streamline common communication workflows like:

Appointment reminders
Pre- and post-procedure instructions
Health education messages
Vaccine reminders
Medication adherence reminders
Billing

Automating common workflows frees up time for staff to focus on urgent patient needs and improves the patient experience.

How to Safely Use PHI in Patient Communications

Patients are already communicating with their healthcare providers one-on-one via email. The question is, how can you protect this data while communicating at scale for marketing and educational purposes? There are tools (like LuxSci’s Secure Marketing and Secure High Volume Email solutions) that are designed to support the unique security needs of the healthcare industry while providing the personalized digital experience that patients desire.

Protecting PHI in Patient Communications

PHI needs to be protected in emails with advanced encryption technology. TLS encryption should be used as often as possible because it provides a user experience like regular email without requiring a portal login. For marketing and patient education emails, TLS is sufficient to protect data and allows patients to readily engage with the email content. By properly vetting and choosing the right vendors, marketing and administrative teams can communicate with patients via email without violating HIPAA.

Personalization at Scale

The power of PHI is undeniable. When healthcare marketers can harness healthcare data to create ultra-personalized campaigns, it increases their relevance and the likelihood that the content will be engaged with, delivering a better ROI. Our solutions integrate via API to securely personalize messages and trigger emails when specific conditions are met. This allows marketers to send relevant messages at the right time when it is relevant to the patient’s healthcare journey.

Modern technology is needed to serve today’s patients. Meeting patients where they are with the information they need on the channels they prefer is vital to improving healthcare outcomes for the most vulnerable populations. Using PHI in patient communications gives your organization a comparative advantage by providing a better patient experience.

Tags: automation, email encryption, patient communication, patient experience, personalization, phi, secure email, secure marketing, tls encryption
Posted in Email, Email Marketing
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New Feature Announcement: Automated Reporting with Webhooks

Monday, February 27th, 2023

The LuxSci team is pleased to announce the release of automated reporting with webhooks to help organizations manage their data workflows. These updates will allow administrators to push information and analytics from their email campaigns into existing dashboards or to email recipients in close to real time.

“Webhooks give us the ability to receive real-time notifications and events from LuxSci in bulk, which will streamline our internal analysis, reporting, and, therefore, decision-making,” said Katie Ali, Product Manager at Signify Health.

“Today, our analysis is limited due to the number of resources we have on hand to pull email data. Now that we are implementing webhooks, we can start to automate the analytic process from end to end. Webhooks also eliminate the complexity of a reoccurring polling logic to achieve the same effect.”

What are Webhooks?

A webhook is an HTTP request triggered by an event in a source system and sent to a destination system. In other words, webhooks push data to the customer’s website URL for processing.

LuxSci’s webhooks are available for all our API reports, including email sending, delivery status changes, email opens, email clicks, login failures, and unsubscribes.

In addition to traditional webhooks that post data to a URL, LuxSci also allows API reports to be automatically sent via TLS-encrypted email to any email address at a custom frequency. The report data is attached to the email in JSON, CSV, or HTML format.

Why are LuxSci’s Webhooks Useful?

Webhooks allow customers to automatically push information about email events via LuxSci’s API as they are happening without pulling from the API. That allows customers to record and review this information and take timely action based on these events.

LuxSci’s webhooks are incredibly scalable, unlike those of many other providers. Instead of sending one webhook notification to the customer for each event (which could be millions of notifications a day), LuxSci sends a digest of all events that happened over a specified period. By sending a digest instead of individual notifications, it is easier to process the notifications at scale. Batching the notifications reduces the server resources the customer requires to receive and process high volumes of webhooks by a significant amount.

Our webhooks are also resilient to customer webhook processing service failure. LuxSci will automatically retry webhook delivery when customer processing servers are down or failing, so events are less likely to be lost than webhooks provided by other services.

How to Set Up Automated Reporting with Webhooks

Login to your LuxSci account and visit the Report section of the user interface. In the sidebar, select Automated Reports. First, you will need to select the data you want to report. Choose from API reports including:

Emails sent
Delivery status updates
Emails opened
Emailed links clicked
SMTP login failures
Email addresses suppressed or unsubscribed
Emails marked as spam

Then select the data source (either SMTP/API or WebMail). The reports can include account-wide events or can be restricted to only certain users. Name the report and how frequently you want to check for new events. Webhooks reporting is configurable to any desired granularity from once every minute to once a day.

Reports will only be sent when there are new events. For example, a report with five-minute intervals checks for new events every five minutes but only sends a report if there are new events.

Finally, choose how the data should be delivered (via a webhook or email with TLS encryption) and in what format for email reports (JSON, HTML, or CSV). Enter an email address to notify if there are errors with the report, and then you can enable it.

Automated reports can be further customized by using parameters. For example, they help limit reporting to specific domains, campaigns, or email headers. Please contact our team today to learn more about how LuxSci’s Automated Reporting can enhance your data workflows.

Tags: analytics, api, automation, data workflows, email reports, operational efficiency, webhooks
Posted in New Feature Announcements
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Increasing Access to Mental Health Care with Digital Technology

Tuesday, May 24th, 2022

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. The pandemic sharply increased the demand for behavioral health services, and digital solutions proved to be a popular solution. This article explores changing consumer preferences and how care delivery organizations can use digital technology to support patients seeking mental health care.

Demand for Digital Mental Health Care is Increasing

The demand for mental health care services has grown drastically over the past three years. According to Kaiser Family Foundation data, outpatient visits related to mental health or substance use diagnoses increased from 11 percent in 2019 to 39 percent in 2021.

In April 2020, the Food and Drug Administration loosened regulations on mental health applications so that people would not have to go without support during the difficult early days of the pandemic. This decision allowed for rapid growth in direct-to-consumer mental health treatment through apps like Headspace and BetterHelp. As a result, venture capital firms invested more than $2.4 billion in digital behavioral health apps in 2020- more than twice the amount invested in 2019.

As the public health emergency will likely wind down this year, organizations must figure out how to continue to meet consumers’ preferences for mental health care. Many consumers prefer the convenience and privacy that digital alternatives offer.

Why Use Digital Alternatives

Although people first turned to digital alternatives out of necessity, it is clear that many patients now prefer digital alternatives. Mental health care is particularly suited to digital treatments, as physical examinations are often not required for diagnosis and treatment.

In addition, digital alternatives can help limit stigma and reduce stress. Accessing care at home means that running into neighbors in the waiting room is physically impossible. Digital options offer privacy and discretion. People can access care without worrying that someone will find out about it.

Even better, patients can access digital mental health care at almost any time and location. This increases access to care for people with demanding work and family schedules, limited transportation, and other reasons they cannot come into a traditional medical office during regular office hours. An internet connection is all that is needed to talk to a mental health professional.

Finally, digital alternatives enable individuals who are members of underserved groups to connect with mental health professionals who understand their experiences. For example, removing geographic restrictions can allow an LGBT person to meet with a therapist who accepts their identity and has experience working with individuals of different gender and sexual identities. Increasing patient satisfaction leads to better health outcomes.

Barriers to Digital Mental Health Care

A report from athenahealth found that even though there is a growing demand for mental health services, many adults still do not have access to the care they want and need.

High-speed broadband access is still not widespread or affordable enough to support digital health options for many individuals living in rural areas. Federal and state governments are working with internet service providers on solutions, but it remains an issue for rural and poorer patient populations.

People are also concerned about the cost of mental health treatment and possible insurance issues. Many insurance plans do not cover mental health treatment. High out-of-pocket health costs can lead people to postpone or avoid care, producing poorer health outcomes and raising overall healthcare spending.

Mental health stigma is also a barrier to care. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of the athenahealth survey respondents reported feeling judgment from family members when talking about mental health. Removing cultural barriers to treatment is a complex issue that needs to be addressed to ensure that everyone has access to the care they need.

Conclusion

Digital mental health care is likely here to stay. For mental health professionals offering telehealth and digital care, remember to use secure communications. As the FDA re-instates regulations, insecure texting, email, and video will no longer be secure enough for patient communications. Contact LuxSci today if you want to learn more about protecting digital mental health care communications.

Tags: automation, care delivery, digital technology, mental health care, telehealth
Posted in Telehealth
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Implementing Zero Trust Architecture

Tuesday, March 8th, 2022

The US Government has released its zero trust strategy to help government agencies implement zero trust architectures. It requires federal agencies to meet certain standards before the end of the 2024 fiscal year.

The zero trust strategy aims to improve the nation’s security posture and reduce the potential harms from cyber attacks. It assumes that attackers cannot be kept outside of network perimeters and sensitive data should be protected at all times.

The move toward zero trust architecture is a significant undertaking for the federal government, and this strategy aims to outline a common path for agencies to take, as well as limit uncertainty about transitioning.

It will require agency heads to partner with IT leadership in a joint commitment to overhaul the current security architecture and move toward a zero trust model. The strategy encourages agencies to assist each other as they work to implement zero trust architecture, exchanging information and even staff where necessary. Ultimately, the zero trust strategy aims to make the federal agencies stronger and more resilient against cyber attacks.

What Does The Zero Trust Architecture Strategy Include?

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) created a zero trust maturity model to guide the strategy. The model contains five pillars including:

Identity
Devices
Networks
Applications and Workloads
Data

There are also three themes that cut through each of these areas:

Visibility and Analytics
Automation and Orchestration
Governance

Identity

First, the strategy includes a number of identity-related goals. Federal agencies must establish centralized identity-management systems for their employees. These systems must integrate with common platforms and applications.

Another core goal is for agencies to use strong multi-factor authentication throughout the organization. However, it must be enforced at the application layer rather than at the network layer. Password policies no longer require the use of special characters or frequent password changes.

The new strategy will also require that user authorization also incorporates at least one device-level signal. This could include confirming the device is authorized to access the application and has up-to-date security patches.

Devices

Under the Devices pillar, federal agencies must participate in CISA’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program. This allows them to create reliable asset inventories. The other major goal is for each agency’s Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools to be deployed widely and to meet CISA’s technical requirements.

Networks

Among the network-related measures, agencies need to use encrypted DNS to resolve DNS queries wherever it is technically supported. They must also force HTTPS for all web and API traffic. On top of this, agencies also need to submit a zero trust architecture plan that includes their approach to environmental isolation to the Office of Management and Budget.

Applications and Workloads

In addition, there are a number of application and workload-related goals for agencies, including:

Operating dedicated application security testing programs.
Undergoing third-party application security evaluations.
Running a public vulnerability disclosure program.
Working toward deploying services that employ immutable workloads.

Data

When it comes to data, agencies must follow a zero trust data security guide created by a joint committee made up of Federal Chief Data Officers and Chief Information Security Officers. Agencies must also automate data categorization and security responses, with a focus on tagging and managing access to sensitive documents. They must also audit any access to encrypted data in commercial cloud services. Another goal is for agencies to work alongside CISA to implement logging and information sharing capabilities.

Zero Trust Architecture and the Future

The federal government isn’t just pushing toward a zero trust architecture model as a fun new hobby. Instead, it is a response to the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks, especially those originating from nation-state level groups.

These complex and well-resourced cyber attacks aren’t only a threat to government agencies. Other organizations face similar threats in the ever-changing threat landscape. The reality is that businesses also need to move toward the zero trust model in order to effectively defend themselves in the future.

LuxSci can help your organization make the change through services such as our zero trust email options, or our zero trust dedicated servers. Contact our team to find out how LuxSci can help your organization prepare for a zero trust future.

Tags: automation, dedicated servers, encryption, endpoint security, firewalls, multifactor authentication, password policy, zero trust
Posted in LuxSci Library: Security and Privacy
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