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What are Secure Email APIs?

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023

APIs are just one tool that organizations can use to streamline operations and automate processes. Healthcare organizations can utilize secure email APIs to save time and streamline their operations. This article explains what secure email APIs are and ways that healthcare organizations can use them while maintaining HIPAA compliance.

email api workflow

What is an API?

First, let’s take a minute to review what an API is. API is an acronym that stands for “Application Programming Interface.” APIs enable companies to open their applications’ data and functionality to external third-party developers, business partners, and internal departments. They leverage each other’s data and functionality through a documented interface. APIs simplify app development by allowing applications to work together.

APIs help business and IT teams collaborate. Let’s look at a simple example to illustrate how they work. If a smartwatch developer wanted to display the weather on the watch face, they could use the Weather Underground API to source current weather data and local forecasts. Application developers do not have to create an entirely new weather database and keep it updated. Instead, the API permits them to use the Weather Underground’s meteorological data in their application.

APIs enable information to flow both ways. The smartwatch can display Weather Underground forecasts, and the API can report data back to the Weather Underground. This functionality enables interoperability and data sharing.

What Are Email APIs?

An email API allows applications to send emails and deliver email data to other systems. Email APIs are often used to send transactional emails from applications like CRMs, EHRs, and other databases. Trigger-based emails are ideal for sending with an email API. In this situation, emails are sent when pre-determined conditions are met. For example, an order confirmation is a transactional, trigger-based email. A person buys a product online, the transaction is processed within the e-commerce application, and an email is sent to the buyer with their transaction details. The email is sent automatically with an email API and pulls data about their purchase from the application into the email message to provide a personalized record of their order details. The API can also return data to the application about the email delivery, including information about who opened and clicked on a link within the message.

When to Use Secure Email APIs?

When transmitting information that may be sensitive, it’s essential to utilize email APIs that offer additional security features. For example, suppose healthcare organizations want to use email APIs to send appointment reminders from their electronic health record system. As a covered entity subject to HIPAA regulations, those emails contain ePHI and must be encrypted to protect that data as required under the HIPAA Security Rule.

Organizations subject to regulatory compliance regulations should ensure they utilize a secure email API service that enables them to encrypt their email messages (in addition to meeting other technical security standards).

secure email api

What is Required for Email API Security?

Email encryption is essential to help organizations meet compliance requirements and protect data. However, secure email APIs also include additional features to help protect employee accounts and client data. Some key email API security features include:

Authentication

Controlling access to the API is essential to ensure unauthorized users cannot send emails. Email APIs use access tokens to grant specific users access to resources and data and ensure that only authorized users can send emails.

You can also enable DMARC, SPF, and DKIM with email API sending to prevent spoofing and build trust with your users. These protocols help prevent impersonation and improve email deliverability.

Access Controls

Access to the API should be logged and reviewable to make it easy to detect suspicious activity. To meet compliance regulations, you must keep audit logs that track who accessed sensitive data and when.

Benefits of Secure Email APIs

Imagine if it was an employee’s responsibility to create and send every unique appointment reminder email for a practice. It would be completely overwhelming. Besides saving time, some of the main benefits of email APIs include:

      • Easy to use and implement
      • Cost savings
      • Email deliverability improvements
      • Email list management
      • Reporting and analytics functionality
      • Personalization and customization
      • Enterprise-grade security

Secure Email APIs Use Cases for Healthcare

Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to improve the patient experience. Online shoppers expect to see those order confirmation emails within a few minutes of finalizing their orders. Healthcare consumers using online communication tools expect the same experience from their providers. By expediting and personalizing patient communications, email APIs can help increase patient satisfaction.

Some examples of the types of emails that healthcare providers can send using an email API include:

  • Welcome emails
  • Appointment reminders
  • Patient satisfaction surveys
  • Flu shot and vaccine reminders
  • Password resets and other transactional emails

It works like this: the developer creates the email templates in advance and the criteria for email sending. The email is automatically sent when the conditions are met. For example, a developer may trigger a welcome email to send when:

1) a new patient is added to the database, and

2) their first appointment date is set.

Email APIs can also pull information from the patient record to personalize the email. The welcome email may include the patient’s name and the date of their first appointment.

Other than updating the patient record, office administrators do not need to take additional actions to send the email. The email API automatically sends customized emails when appropriate, saving time and stress for administrative employees.

Conclusion

Email APIs are an essential part of digital health transformation and interoperability. Healthcare organizations should explore how APIs can improve their workflows and improve efficiency. LuxSci provides HIPAA-compliant and secure email APIs with Secure High Volume Email Sending. Contact us today to learn more.

Tags: api, email api, email automation, email workflows, hipaa compliant api, operational efficiency, secure api, secure email api, Transactional email
Posted in Email, Email Marketing
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The Security Risks of Staffing Challenges

Wednesday, March 29th, 2023

The cybersecurity talent shortage is a known issue that the government, industry groups, and educators are working to address. But as CISOs are asked to do more with fewer resources and support, it can risk healthcare organizations’ cybersecurity. The “Implications of Stress on CISOs 2023 Report” by Cynet found that many security teams faced retention challenges due to work-related stress that could put their data at risk.

The Security Risks of Staffing Challenges

When security teams are understaffed, they can become overworked and burnt out. As a result, they have less time to focus on updating security policies, training staff, and monitoring the attack surface. The impacts of staffing challenges can significantly affect the ability of security teams to detect and respond to threats. The survey found that 65 percent of CISOs stated that work-related stress affected their capacity to safeguard their organization. In addition, 77 percent of CISOs believed their insufficient bandwidth and inadequate resources caused critical security initiatives to be neglected. These lapses are not going unnoticed. Seventy-nine percent of CISOs have received complaints from colleagues claiming security tasks are not being adequately handled.

the security risks of staffing challengesWith limited choices, organizations must be wise and strategic in the technology they employ. When asked about the technology initiatives that could positively impact their work-related stress levels, 57 percent of the respondents cited consolidating multiple security technologies on a single platform or interface as a possible solution. Additionally, 51 percent of the respondents believed automating time-consuming and repetitive manual tasks would help reduce their workloads.

Candidate Quality Staffing Challenges

When security teams cannot find qualified candidates to fill open positions, crucial tasks are left incomplete, and other team members must pick up the slack. In turn, this can lead to compounding issues with employee satisfaction and retention. Of the surveyed CISO teams, 74 percent reported losing team members due to work-related stress issues.

According to the report, nearly half of the teams had more than one CISO resign over the last 12 months. The impact of stress levels is seen in retention rates and recruitment efforts, with 83 percent of CISOs admitting they have had to compromise on the quality of new hires to fill vacancies left by departing employees.

Solving retention and recruitment issues is essential to improve your organization’s security posture. Rethinking the hiring process and investing in entry-level talent is just one approach to filling the cybersecurity talent pipeline.

Ways to Alleviate the Security Risks of Staffing Challenges

While solving staffing challenges will take time and investment from the public and private sectors, there are ways to streamline and automate tasks to reduce the burden on security teams.

According to Deloitte, email is a significant vector of security risk for many healthcare organizations. 91% of all cyber attacks begin with a phishing email. Healthcare organizations have more to worry about than cyberattacks. They are also vulnerable to insider threats and have serious data compliance obligations. Employees must understand data loss prevention and how to protect sensitive information that is shared externally.

By using LuxSci’s best-in-class secure email technology, it can drastically reduce the burden on security teams. Protect from external threats by employing advanced email filtering to stop cybercriminals from even reaching inboxes. In addition, LuxSci’s email encryption is enabled automatically to protect sensitive data in transit. It’s easy to administer and doesn’t require security and IT teams to spend hours developing keyword lists, analyzing gaps, and training employees. By reducing the risk of your email communications, security teams can focus their limited resources on critical security initiatives.

Contact LuxSci today to learn how our experienced team can help alleviate the burden on your security and IT teams.

Tags: ciso, cybersecurity, cybersecurity risk, email encryption, email filtering, email security, operational efficiency, phishing, risk assessment, secure connector, secure email, security risk, staffing
Posted in LuxSci Library: Security and Privacy
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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.” 

automated reporting webhooks

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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Precision Nudging and Patient Engagement: Using PHI to Improve Outcomes

Friday, January 20th, 2023

Precision nudging is a new buzzword in the patient engagement space. But what does it mean, and how does it apply to your email engagement efforts?

precision nudging email with PHI

What is Precision Nudging?

Forrester defines precision nudging as “the act of notifying or sending a message that prompts action by the patient to overcome patient-specific barriers to action at the right time and place for scalable, sustained behavior change.”

Precision nudging is a preemptive and proactive approach to patient communication. Reminding patients about appointments before they occur can ensure they do not miss important screenings and checkups. By receiving timely diagnoses and treatments, it saves money and improves health outcomes in the long term. Automating these processes at scale can streamline clinical communications and improve patient satisfaction. Beyond appointment reminders, there are many applications for this strategy.

Precision Nudging Strategies

The most critical part of precision nudging is delivering information to the patient at the correct time. Some common ways organizations are adopting precision nudging include:

  • Appointment reminders
  • Medication refill reminders
  • Pre and post-surgery instructions
  • Chronic condition education and resources
  • Mental health check-ins
  • Annual screening reminders

Sending notifications that nudge patients into taking necessary actions is a practical patient engagement strategy. Engaging with patients more frequently can build trust with the provider and encourage patients to take early action that improves their health. Precision nudging can prevent unnecessary visits to the hospital and ultimately drive down spiraling healthcare costs. So many unnecessary hospital admissions occur because patients do not understand or adhere to treatment plans. Nudging patients to change bandages, take medication, or get preventative screenings increases the likelihood of better health outcomes.

How to Use PHI in Precision Nudging

When communicating with patients about their healthcare, it’s essential to use a secure and encrypted communication channel. Regular texts and emails won’t cut it. 93% of patients prefer to communicate with their healthcare provider via email, so it’s wise to start there.

Also, make sure these messages are not locked behind a patient portal. Use TLS encryption to secure the email to make it as easy as possible to read and respond to, while staying in compliance.

Once you have determined your channel, determine your audience. It makes sense to start small. Maybe you want to encourage individuals who have skipped an appointment to reschedule or want to help people recently diagnosed with a chronic condition like diabetes better manage their condition.

Then, create your message. Make sure it is clear, concise, and has a simple call to action. Also, personalize it to fit the audience’s preferences. If the patient primarily speaks Spanish, provide a message in their native language.

Once you’ve established the proper cadence, you can expand your use cases to some examples above. Using a scalable and HIPAA-compliant platform like LuxSci’s Secure Marketing or Secure High Volume Email makes it easy to personalize, send, and review the results of these campaigns. Contact us today to learn more about how to incorporate precision nudging into your clinical communications efforts.

Tags: email engagement, email marketing, health outcomes, operational efficiency, patient education, patient engagement, precision nudging
Posted in Email Marketing, LuxSci Library: HIPAA
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Prevent Patient No-Shows with Automated Appointment Reminders

Tuesday, September 6th, 2022

Missed medical appointments are not only bad for your business, but they can also negatively impact patient health outcomes. You can improve attendance and health outcomes without adding to administrative overhead by automating appointment reminders and customizing them according to patient preferences.

auto appointment reminders

Why Implement Automated Appointment Reminders

There are many reasons to introduce automated appointment reminders. People are busy, and many rely on digital calendars to stay organized. Many businesses outside the healthcare industry use digital appointment reminders to improve attendance and make scheduling and rescheduling appointments as easy as possible.

Changing Consumer Preferences

Most (88%) of customers said receiving automated appointment reminders via phone and text is important to them, according to a CVS Health survey. The rapid digitization of the healthcare system due to the Covid-19 pandemic has led patients to expect a healthcare experience that fits into their lifestyles. Reminders for haircuts, car appointments, and other personal care services are extremely common, and people expect that from their healthcare providers. In addition, communication preferences are changing. Very few people answer phone calls from unknown numbers. Instead, the majority of patients prefer less intrusive email and text reminders.

Improved Health Outcomes for Patients

As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Skipping appointments or delaying care puts patients at risk of developing more serious illnesses. Catching conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer early drastically improves prognoses and allows for less expensive and intrusive interventions. Most people don’t intend to skip medical appointments, but life happens. Sending timely appointment reminders before the visit gives overbooked individuals an opportunity to reschedule without a potentially costly missed appointment.

Reduced Administrative Overhead

If your administrative staff members are tasked with making phone calls to confirm appointments, automated reminders can allow them to prioritize other tasks associated with patient care. Keeping the phone lines open to help care for patients with urgent questions improves the patient experience and keeps staff members engaged.

How to Implement Automated Appointment Reminders

Most automated reminders are sent via email, text messaging, or phone calls. We recommend surveying your patient population to find out which communication methods they prefer. By sending the message according to their preference, it increases the likelihood that they will see it and respond appropriately.

Once that is determined, use a tool like LuxSci’s Secure High Volume Email or Secure Texting to integrate with your CRM or EHR and set up trigger points and reminder templates that pull information from the database. For example, maybe you find that five business days before the appointment is the best time to send the reminder. Patients need to have enough time to read the notification and reschedule if necessary. When the appointment is five days away, a message is automatically sent to the patient reminding them of the appointment. Ideally, this message will also include rescheduling options.

One caveat- notice that we mentioned “secure” email and texting. Appointment reminders imply information about health conditions and are PHI that is protected under HIPAA regulations. These messages must be encrypted and follow other HIPAA requirements for access controls, audit logs, and more. Review our HIPAA Compliance Checklist for more information.

Tags: appointment reminders, digital health, digital transformation, high volume email, operational efficiency, patient engagement, secure texting, Transactional email
Posted in Business Solutions, Email Marketing
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