TigerText Announces Integration with Box DICOM Viewer

TigerText, the leading provider of HIPAA-compliant messaging solutions for the enterprise, has announced deeper integration with Box, the leading healthcare content management platform.

Box is used by healthcare organizations to share and collaborate on DICOM medical images. Now that the TigerConnect developer platform has been more extensively integrated with the Box DICOM viewer, healthcare professionals can now share medical images via text message.

 

DICOM, which stands for digital imaging and communications in medicine, is a standard used by the industry to store and transmit medical images securely. The standard was developed to eliminate barriers to interoperability and ensure medical images could be easily shared for diagnostic purposes. While DICOM allows data to be shared and sent to servers, workstations, printers, and be incorporated into PACS, the ability to send data via text message will allow physicians to receive images more quickly. This has potential to speed up consults and ensure physicians can diagnose medical conditions faster.

The integration of the TigerText secure messaging platform with Box will enable physicians to receive and view medical image on their tablets and smartphones, not only their PCs and laptops.

Missy Krasner, Managing Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Box said “We’re delighted to expand our integration with TigerText to now include the sharing of DICOM files via secure text messaging. Krasner went on to say, “This new integration helps doctors receive imaging studies on the web or mobile phones, allowing for quicker diagnoses and consults.”

Medical images are classed as protected health information (PHI) under HIPAA and therefore cannot be transmitted via standard messaging platforms. PHI can only be transmitted if data are protected in transit and controls are put in place to prevent the viewing of data by unauthorized individuals. Since standard messaging platforms lack encryption and authentication controls, the sharing of data via unsecured text message would violate HIPAA Rules and could result in a financial penalty. The TigerText TigerConnect platform incorporates all of the necessary controls to ensure PHI such as medical images can be transmitted securely, without falling afoul of HIPAA Rules.

As Itamar Kandel, president of TigerConnect, explained, “The TigerConnect developer platform was created to help healthcare organizations improve communication across the care continuum with secure messaging applications, without the need to create them from scratch.” Kandel went on to say, “Our latest integration with Box is an exciting step towards fulfilling our shared vision to provide patients and medical professionals with access to more information at the point of care.”

Author: Richard Anderson

Richard Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief of NetSec.news