Best Practices For Building An Encrypted (But Accessible) EMail Archive 
by Kelly Jackson Higgins, InformationWeek, September 8, 2005
Regulatory and legal pressures are forcing many companies to encrypt their email and other archives. But can they decipher those messages or that data when they need to? We tell you how.
You've Got Mail: Email Encryption is Becoming a Necessity for Protecting Sensitive Information by Paul McNamara, Network World, August 15, 2005
The sheer volume was the shocker. Cliff Gobin had figured it would be maybe a few dozen e-mails a month - only those carrying confidential patient information off the network - that would need to be encrypted once his hospital rolled out a secure-messaging capability to employees and affiliated physicians. The actual number of e-mails being encrypted today: 1,000 to 1,500 per month.
Digital Doctors by Ann Geracimos, the Washington Times, January 13, 2005
Here at the the Washington ENT Group in Washington, DC, computers play a direct role in patient care, but issues involved in protecting patient privacy restrict certain kinds of communication. For the most part, doctors do not return e mail requests from patients about medical matters because they cannot be sure who is actually making the request and why, but this is decided on a case-by-case basis.
Time Spent on Email
Concerns Many Doctors
by Kelli M. Dugan, Birmingham Business Journal, November 7, 2004
Without a reimbursement system ensuring physicians their electronic
time is valued at least on par with their billable time, local
doctors doubt adopting the technology will be worth the effort
or the compromised patient privacy.
Email
Management: The Curse of the Killer App
by Carol Hildebrand, SearchStorage.com, October 27, 2004
For many organizations, regulatory compliance laws have mandated
a closer look at how they manage email. From HIPAA to the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act (SOX), regulatory insistence on the ability to retain and
quickly retrieve valuable data grows more common.
You've Got Mail by Douglas Kamerow, Editor, British Medical
Journal USA edition, October 16, 2004
In an
interview with BMJ USA, National Health IT Coordinator David Brailer,
MD, PhD,
says that email is an essential component of clinical care, although
he concedes that Medicare does not currently reimburse doctors
for email consultations. An editorial by Steven Waldren and David
Kibbe, both of the American Academy of Family Physicians' Center
for Health IT, "Email
in Clinical Care," says that email can best be used as
part of a fully electronic health record, arguing that stand-alone
applications are an invitation for errors. They also point out
that the standard email being exchanged today between doctors
and patients fails to meet necessary standards for confidentiality.
Wall
Street Journal Examines Physicians’ Reluctance to Email Patients,
iHealthBeat,
June 3, 2003
While doctors are accepting their patients’ use of the Internet
to find health information, many are reluctant to take “the
next step with virtual doctoring” by communicating electronically
with patients, according to the Wall Street Journal. Physicians
fear that using email to provide medical care could expose them
to more malpractice suits, violate the HIPAA privacy regulations
and “change the doctor-patient relationship for the worse,"
the Journal reports.
Top
10 Tips for Setting a Secure Communications Policy
by Ken Beer, ComputerWorld, January 22, 2003
Employee misuse of corporate e-mail has been a source of liability
for numerous organizations, and many are now moving to develop
policies that define appropriate usage. Businesses are also increasingly
adopting policies to ensure that government regulations are met,
sensitive business data is secure and customer privacy is protected.
Here, in no particular order, are the top 10 things IT policy-makers
should consider when developing corporate email policies.
Email
Connects Patients, Doctors
by Sarah A. Webster, The Detroit News, September 2, 2002
According to iHealthBeat, the Detroit News reports Henry Ford
Health System is piloting a Web-based patient-physician communication
project in a move to increase efficiency and convenience for patients
and physicians. Patients can request prescription refills, receive
tests results and ask physicians questions through personalized
Web pages that use a secure messaging system. Typically within
24 hours, physician responses to patients’ questions are
posted on patients’ individual password-protected Web pages;
the system automatically notifies patients via email when their
page is updated.
Medicine
by Email Grows
by Jan Jarvis, Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 6, 2002
Many doctors have been reluctant to hang their shingle at a virtual
office because of privacy concerns, but more and more are turning
to technology to improve the way they practice medicine. Some
health professionals are so unsure about how HIPAA will affect
medicine that they are steering clear of online services.
Doctors
Resist Emailing Patients
by Katie Hafner, New York Times News Service, June 10, 2002
As Internet use became commonplace, some experts held up email
as a promising new medium for communication between doctors and
patients. But reality has fallen short of the predictions. Physicians,
it turns out, are largely reluctant to exchange email with patients.
Get
a Grip on Email Security: What are the options for fulfilling
the HIPAA email encryption rules?
by Robert Voelk and Ann Geyer, Healthcare Informatics
Email has quickly established itself as the dominant communication
method in the workplace. But in the healthcare industry, the broad
implications of the HIPAA requirements regarding email's implementation
and management are poised to disrupt its use.
Secure
Messaging Strategies for Healthcare IT Professionals
by Ken Beer
With the final HIPAA privacy regulation issued, healthcare IT
professionals now must determine how to best ensure the confidentiality
of patient records as they move between healthcare constituents
across multiple networks.
Email
patients? Don't be nervous. Do be careful
by Ken Terry, Editor, Managed Care magazine
Yes, you need to be cautious and set up a secure system. But liability
risks are much less than many doctors fear, say experts.
