{"id":21996,"date":"2020-03-19T14:45:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T18:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/id-ashley.cms-devl.bu.edu\/researchsupport\/?p=21996"},"modified":"2020-03-19T14:45:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T18:45:11","slug":"best-practices-for-communication-with-patients-or-research-subjects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/2020\/03\/19\/best-practices-for-communication-with-patients-or-research-subjects\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Practices for Communication with Patients or Research Subjects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Colleagues,<\/span><\/p>\n

All communication with patients and research subjects poses some risk to the privacy of those individuals. In simple cases a conversation or message may be overheard, but in other cases our choice of communication method may increase the risk that a message will be intercepted: For example, voice and text messages sent to your phone are generally not encrypted.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, what should I do?<\/b><\/p>\n

You should use the\u00a0<\/span>BU SecureMail<\/span><\/a>\u00a0email service (free to use) unless the patient or research subject has agreed – ideally in writing – to use non-secure communications via email or text.<\/span><\/p>\n

If your patients or research subjects are leaving you voicemail messages, it is a best practice to include language in your voicemail message discouraging them from including sensitive information. Likewise, when you are leaving voicemail messages, remember to avoid disclosing any sensitive information.<\/span><\/p>\n

What about BU Teams and Zoom?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When using\u00a0<\/span>BU Teams<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on your computer or phone, calls, video meetings, and chat communications are automatically encrypted. And, like most BU Office365 apps (SharePoint, OneDrive, PowerBI), it is HIPAA compliant and meetings can be setup with patients or subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n

Likewise, Zoom meetings are generally secure but you need to know that there are two types of Zoom accounts: Zoom and \u201cZoom Meetings for HIPAA.\u201d Zoom Meetings for HIPAA is compliant but disables your ability to record a conversation as the recordings cannot be securely stored. If you need to record a conversation and it does not contain HIPAA information you can switch between Zoom and Zoom Meetings for HIPAA.<\/span>
\nGo here to switch your account from regular Zoom to Zoom Meetings for HIPAA:\u00a0<\/span>https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/tech\/services\/cccs\/conf\/online\/zoom\/zoom-hipaa\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Using best practices when communicating and leveraging the tools at your disposal will help keep your patient\u2019s or research subject\u2019s privacy intact and protected.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me or Information Security at\u00a0<\/span>buinfosec@bu.edu<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/span>
\nDavid Corbett<\/span>
\nBUMC Information Security Officer and HIPAA Security Officer\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Colleagues, All communication with patients and research subjects poses some risk to the privacy of those individuals. In simple cases a conversation or message may be overheard, but in other cases our choice of communication method may increase the risk that a message will be intercepted: For example, voice and text messages sent to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3357,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[132,207],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3357"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-demos.cms-devl.bu.edu\/bu-filtering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}