Secure messaging is important for any business. In healthcare, it’s essential and has strict requirements for patient privacy. When using the right system and implementing it well, secure messaging can increase staff efficiency and improve overall patient care, while maintaining patient privacy and meeting HIPAA requirements. However, there are challenges with implementing secure messaging, especially in healthcare. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when implementing secure messaging:

1. Not involving the right people.
2. Choosing the wrong system.
3. Having an unreliable wireless infrastructure.
4. Not integrating it with a directory.
5. Neglecting to integrate with other systems.
6. Not identifying objective success measurements.
7. Failing to educate and train your team.
8. Focusing on the short term and ignoring iterative improvements.

Mistake #1 – Not Involving the Right People

It’s easy to remember to include the IT department and clinicians when implementing a secure messaging solution, but it’s also easy to overlook other departments that should be involved. Secure messaging solutions generally affect the whole facility and will affect multiple departments.

One of the biggest mistakes to avoid when implementing secure messaging is not involving the right people. It’s important for all affected departments to be involved. Not every department may need to be involved in every step of the process, but all departments should be properly informed, educated, trained, etc.

Essentially, anyone who will need to use secure messaging or whose work will be touched by it should be involved in some way. Departments that may need to be involved can include, but are not limited to:

• IT
• Clinicians
• Nurses
• Clinical informatics specialists
• Contact center
• Communications and operations
• Executive administration

Not only will each department have different needs that a secure messaging solution will have to meet, but they will also be able to offer valuable insight on what is unique within the department, as well as cross-departmental collaborations.

This will help ensure that a secure messaging solution will be able to meet the entire facility’s needs, facilitate a more efficient initial implementation of the system, and inform essential ongoing optimizations and iterative improvements.

Mistake #2 – Choosing the Wrong System

Although hospitals share some common security threats and vulnerabilities, each healthcare facility will have unique needs and risks that need to be addressed. The wrong system creates inefficiencies and frustration, in addition to increasing risks for patients, and could even lead to potential HIPAA violations of privacy requirements. With secure messaging systems and any other internal communication systems, the right system needs to be able to meet your facility’s unique needs and provide the capabilities you require.

A good secure messaging system should:

• Comply with HIPAA regulations
• Ensure End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) and secure authentication
• Protect both content and metadata
• Integrate with clinical workflows, EHR systems, and other systems
• Allow for retention policies and secure message deletion
• Provide logs for clear audit and access trails
• Be user-friendly for non-technical staff

Mistake #3 – Having an Unreliable Wireless Infrastructure

Wireless systems can be efficient, from installation to scalability and more. However, they need a strong, reliable wireless infrastructure in order to work. This can be a challenge, particularly in rural areas that do not have sufficient network access. Unreliable, inadequate, or poor wireless networks and infrastructure can cause delayed message delivery or even complete message delivery failure.

Not only does this negatively affect staff, but it can also result in delays or missed messages that directly and negatively impact patients. Unreliable wireless infrastructure can create unreliable messaging, which creates distrust in the communication system, increases inefficiencies, and negatively impacts patient care. Depending on the patient and the messages, unreliable messaging could contribute to poorer patient outcomes.

Mass notification systems fit into modern emergency response, and secure messaging is part of that, but people need to be able to receive those alerts reliably. Even if you have the right secure messaging system, it won’t be effective if you don’t have the wireless infrastructure to support it. Before exploring secure messaging systems for your facility, start with a wireless infrastructure audit. Make sure your technology and network will be sufficient.

Additionally, an audit will help you identify if you have any dead zones or areas with a weak signal in your facility. Additional access points can be added to upgrade and improve your wireless infrastructure. The audit may also identify other improvements to consider to ensure your infrastructure and network are set up to perform efficiently and reliably.

Mistake #4 – Not Integrating it With a Directory

Communication systems rely on having updated, accurate information. A good enterprise directory will have accurate information about contact details, preferences, schedules, etc. for all members of care teams in one place. This is also a key way to improve nurse call workflows. When integrated with a secure messaging system, this directory acts as a single source of truth for this information and ensures that essential data is accurate and current.

With secure messaging properly integrated with a directory like this, it should be easy to search the directory, see who is available, see who is on call, send important messages, and more. This keeps important information accessible, allows for real-time updates, saves time, and more, which contributes to better patient outcomes and makes a difference in critical situations. Real-time updates, integrations, and messaging across technologies are benefits of mass notification systems that also apply to good secure messaging systems.

Mistake #5 – Neglecting to Integrate With Other Systems

Integrating seamlessly with other systems is a key quality of good security systems, and it’s important for secure messaging systems as well. Secure messaging systems aren’t meant to work in a silo. Good integration with other systems to send alerts and alarms from nurse call systems, patient monitors, EHR, and more improves communication, eliminates communication gaps, and improves patient care overall.

Ensuring your products and systems are integrated into a seamless, comprehensive solution ensures people are connected to systems and tuned in to critical information when they need it. Not only does this help staff create efficient, seamless, and effective workflows, but it also helps reduce response times. This is one of the ways nurse call systems improve patient safety and care, and secure messaging is an essential component.

Mistake #6 – Not Identifying Objective Success Measurements

Another one of the mistakes to avoid when implementing secure messaging, and any system, is not identifying objective success measurements. For example, acute care engagement solutions improve patient care, but it’s important for the success measurements of a patient engagement solution to go beyond “improving patient care.” Success measurements should be specific, defined, and tied to measurable functions.

• What are your hospital’s business drivers for implementing this system?
• What goals or outcomes should this system help you achieve?
• How is it supposed to facilitate that?
• How will you measure and evaluate those outcomes?

This information is useful during initial setup, installation, and integration, in addition to iterative improvements that have a meaningful impact on desired outcomes. Plus, success measurements will be different for each facility. Without precise, defined, and objective success measurements, important considerations and insights can be left behind or overlooked.

Mistake #7 – Failing to Educate and Train Your Team

Just as not having the right teams involved is a mistake, failing to train your team is another one of the big mistakes to avoid when implementing secure messaging. A secure messaging system, or any system, is just a part of a larger process. The people using it will be key to a system’s success and key to maintaining an effective, efficient process. This is a big reason why your team needs to be trained on your security systems and other systems.

Part of the roll-out of a secure messaging system needs to be education and training on the system with staff. They should have a clear understanding of the benefits the system is meant to provide, where and how it fits in the current procedures and processes, how to use it as effectively as possible, and how they’ll be informed and trained on new features and updates in the future.

Mistake #8 – Focusing on the Short Term and Ignoring Iterative Improvements

Technology evolves, and so do your facility’s needs. You cannot just install healthcare technology, integrate it into your systems, embed it into your processes, and then not think about it anymore. The initial installation and implementation are just the start of an ongoing process.

Just as you need to regularly review, update, and upgrade your security technology, the same is true for any other system or process you implement. Healthcare can change rapidly, and your processes and systems need to keep up. This is why focusing only on the short term and ignoring iterative improvements and ongoing optimizations are mistakes to avoid when implementing secure messaging.

During initial implementation, it’s important to take a long-term view as well as a short-term view. You want to have a plan for monitoring success measurements and identifying ongoing improvements. Not only does this ensure a secure messaging system continues to work effectively and support efficiencies overall, but it can also provide valuable insights that can help reinforce the value of a system, which is useful when it comes to security budget planning.

Improve Security For Your Healthcare Facility With NEPPS

These are just a few mistakes to avoid when implementing secure messaging. Secure messaging is one of the ways healthcare facilities use emergency notification systems and is an integral part of comprehensive security and maintaining compliance in healthcare facilities; it’s important to get it right.

Partnering with an experienced security systems integrator can help ensure your security products and systems, as well as secure messaging systems, are right for your facility. If you need to install new systems or upgrade existing security for your facility, contact NEPPS at 1-800-736-1456.