Huntington Hospital and DrFirst Selected to Present on Secure Communications at the HIMSS16 Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas | DrFirst

ROCKVILLE, Md.— DrFirst, a leading provider of electronic prescribing, secure texting and other SaaS software and services for healthcare, will jointly present a session on secure texting with the Chief Medical Information Officer of New York’s Huntington Hospital at the HIMSS16 Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas.

Dr. Peter Karamanlakis, CMIO of Huntington Hospital, and Linda Fischer, Senior Director of Product Solutions at DrFirst, will present “Best Practices in Secure Communication in Acute Care.” The session will reveal how hospitals can identify communication gaps at critical points within hospital workflow that can be closed through the use of encrypted text messaging. The session takes place at 4 p.m. on March 2 at the Sands Expo Convention Center and qualifies for continuing education credits in numerous programs, including CME, CNE, ACHE, CAHIMS and CPHIMS.

“Recent studies show that busy healthcare providers are spending less time engaging in face-to-face interactions and instead are using their personal smart phones to communicate at work. Often, these phones are not password protected,” Dr. Karamanlakis says. “Ultimately, the healthcare organization is responsible for the security of information shared on the phone, regardless of who owns the device.”

Both presenters will also review the financial and regulatory impacts of communication barriers in healthcare delivery, including in the areas of:

• HIPAA compliance
• Patient adherence
• Readmission rate
• Patient satisfaction
• Patient safety

“Secure texting and care team collaboration enables providers to use their own devices to communicate with colleagues and patients in a secure, encrypted, HIPAA-compliant environment,” says Fischer, who served as VP and CIO at Huntington Hospital for 21 years. “The adoption of secure communication has an immediate and measurable impact on staff productivity, the efficiency of patient care team coordination and patient safety. It also impacts malpractice claims—the root cause of which is often a breakdown in communication.”

DrFirst’s team of medical, clinical and IT experts also will be available at DrFirst’s booth (#943) throughout the HIMSS16 conference to demonstrate the company’s care collaboration solutions, including Backline®, DrFirst’s secure communication and care team collaboration tool.

About DrFirst
DrFirst pioneers healthcare SaaS solutions that inform the doctor-patient point of encounter, optimize provider access to patient information, enhance the doctor’s clinical view of the patient, and improve care delivery and clinical outcomes. Our growth is driven by a commitment to innovation, security and reliability across a wide array of e-medication management and secure communication and collaboration services. We are proud of our track record of service to over 330 EMR/EHR/HIS partners and an extensive network of hospitals, post-acute care facilities, ambulatory practices and pharmacies nationwide.