Dr. Michael Docktor is the director of clinical mobile solutions at Boston Children’s Hospital. A gastroenterologist, he has served in the post one year. In one of his first big decisions in the role, he opted for TigerText as a communication tool. It’s a response to the convenience and immediacy of mobile communication, but harnessing it with HIPAA compliance.
After a pilot phase at the start of the year, including Docktor’s department, the hospital began to roll it out in May.
Although doctors and nurses are big users of the technology, other hospital staff members such as those in food service, housekeeping and the mail room, find the communication service useful because they can reach lots of people at once immediately.
In a phone interview with MedCity News, Docktor talked about the frustration with the antiquated paging systems hospitals have used. That frustration is widely shared by medical staff who prefer to text because pager systems make workflows so painful — get beeped, make a call, inevitably miss the other party. That’s why hospitals are moving to adopt these new communication platforms.
“To me, text messaging is a perfectly natural form of communication,” Docktor said. “It is very much in our workflow.”
He points out that there’s a lot of accountability with TigerText. Users know when a message has been delivered and read. There’s also the usefulness of being able to send images, videos and other relevant patient information with HIPAA compliance.
Docktor said he and his team began looking at communication tools about a year ago. “The landscape is expanding exponentially,” Docktor said. “We vetted a couple, but TigerText has been very supportive and a great partner.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
He said it was continuing to work with them to develop some features for the future. Much like any relationship with a health IT vendor, Boston Children’s and other hospitals will benefit from insights other hospitals produce with TigerText.
Aside from Boston Children’s, at least two other pediatric hospitals have adopted TigerText, including Dell Children’s Medical Center and Driscoll Children’s Hospital.
Docktor’s next big challenge is to roll out a mobile friendly EHR platform from Cerner. The hospital begins piloting the service in small groups this summer.
