I am curious (and a little bit dismayed) at the characterization of a clinician's caution as "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt." I am ALL in favor of secure communications, but I am mindful of the reason for that concern; email is incredibly INSECURE, and the average healthcare consumer (to say nothing of the practitioner) is not aware of how many ways it can go wrong. I would have my doctor err on the side of caution, and given the potential penalties for HIPAA violations, I'm sure the doctor is even more convinced.
By way of analogy, I may not care if the person treating the mole on my neck has all the years of training of an MD, but that's because I don't have any idea of the risks. The doctor has the training to have an idea of what can happen if it is treated as non-cancerous, how I may react to the course of treatment, survivability, likely recovery time, etc. In the same way, the doctor may not know all the ways an email can escape out into the wild and all the ways that information can harm me, my employment, my relationships, or my finances. But he DOES know how much it can cost him if he causes it!
Calling this FUD is itself very FUD'ish. Until you know how build your own nuclear power plant, don't play with the uranium.
ZDNet Healthcare
Dana BlankenhornKryptiq fights the HIPAA FUD
Summary
Forget the $44,000 in stimulus cash. Write a business plan. Talk about the right issues. We can create medical communities again. I want data. Let me see it.
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Blogger Info
I just got one of those annoying notes from a medical professional.
I asked to correspond via e-mail. She replied that “it would be unethical,” then referred me to the phone.
If you want to know what one of the biggest money sinks is in medicine, on the consumer side, it’s this. Doctors think privacy laws force them to engage in only synchronous, voice communications, so as not to let anyone’s secrets slip.
Kryptiq has been fighting this FUD for years. During the HIMSS show I got a chance to sit down with its CEO, Luis Machuca (right).
Kryptiq gets around HIPAA by building systems that let professionals send messages securely, through the cloud, and also lets them exchange files in full compliance with the HIPAA law.
MuchacaMachuca said doctors are wonderful and business is great.
“Providers have realized they’re not in the information hoarding business, but in the service business,” he said. “Consumers have expectations, and that’s changing behavior.”
Tom Landholt, a Kryptiq customer from Springfield, Mo., agreed. “We don’t play phone tag,” he said. Kryptiq lets him work seamlessly with both of the large hospital networks in his town, and send secure messages to patients.
Muchaca Machuca is not just selling, Landholt said. Doctors are buying. Where you would once set up a meeting to talk to 40 physicians about electronic records and maybe 6 showed up, now you set up for 40 and 60 show up.
“Forget the $44,000″ in sweet, sweet stimulus cash, he suggested. “Write a business plan. You tell me why you want a portal, or electronic records.
“Talk about the right issues. We can create medical communities again. I want data. Let me see it.”
Not everyone has gotten the message yet, but more are getting it each day, MuchacaMachuca said. Be patient.
What choice do I have?
Disclosure
Dana Blankenhorn
Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years.
At the present moment I run only a personal blog in addition to my ZDNet open source blog.
DanaBlankenhorn.Com has the subtitle The War Against Oil. In the past I have used it to write about political history, e-commerce, personal matters, some ideas related to open source, and The World of Always On, which is the idea of using sensors, motes and RFID to turn WiFi links into platforms for applications which live in the air.
My IRA account at Schwab holds a few tech shares, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials, but there are no open source companies in it. I don’t even own any CBS stock.
Biography
Dana Blankenhorn
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994.
More from “ZDNet Healthcare”
Related Discussions on TechRepublic
Did you know you can take part in these discussions with your ZDNet membership?Talkback Most Recent of 4 Talkback(s)
-
knechod03/05/2010 10:15 AM -
RE: Kryptiq fights the HIPAA FUD
I agree and not only for the reasons you describe. We advise physicians not to discuss treatment via email because it NEVER makes it into the medical record. As a result of our litigious society, this means taking out the check book and writing a settlement check when that growth does turn malignant and the patient sues for malpractice.
The story is poorly written (come on - strike through for repeated spelling mistakes?) and the Kryptiq viewpoint is a sign of not being properly educated in the vertical market for which they seek to enter.
I know whose products I will not be purchasing!
tbird26403/05/2010 11:02 AM -
Straight Talk
One point of clarification for tbird264: At our
clinic, we overcome the issue you mention about
lack of integration with the EMR. The software we
use from Kryptiq actually integrates all content
from the secure messages directly into our EMR
without any double entry by the staff or
physician. So, we have consistent documentation
across secure messaging and the patient record. ?
Dr. Tom Landholt
tommyfox103/05/2010 03:34 PM -
Integrate patient communication with medical records
Hi tbird264: I concur with your sentiments re: the need to include patient communication in the medical record. Dr. Landholt?s experience mentioned in the article is shared by the 40,000 physicians and their staffs who use our solutions as a part of an everyday workflow.
For nearly 10 years, we at Kryptiq have been tackling the issue of medical record integration head on, and are delivering secure solutions that integrate to the Electronic Health Record (EHR) desktop to ensure patient and provider communications are efficient and well documented.
If you?d like to talk about our solutions, and how they address the issues to which you refer, I?d very much welcome it: mcostello@kryptiq.com
malcolmcostello03/05/2010 04:34 PM
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