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By BRIAN TAFF and HEATHER GRUBOLA

May 10, 2012 (WPVI) — For all of the conveniences that come along with modern technology, the loss of privacy may be the biggest inconvenience.

Who can we trust with what information, once it’s out there in cyberspace? Some new websites that claim to make your message disappear right before someone else’s eyes.

Priv-Note is just one sight that allows you to send a message, and be sure it’s read only once, and only by the person to whom you sent it. You type your note on the website, then copy the link into your email and hit send. Once it’s read, it cannot be opened again.

Other sites allow you control how long the message lives for. Destructingmessage.com or kicknotes.com can ensure it will be destroyed one minute after you send it, two weeks later, or longer.
The idea is to make sure that emails with sensitive information like finances, or passwords aren’t floating out in cyberspace, or end up in the wrong hands. But as with anything, you need to read the fine print.

“How is it deleted? Some of their services just erase that particular link,” said online security expert from Drexel University Rob D’Ovidio. “That path to that message on that server is erased. It doesn’t mean the message has been erased.”

D’Ovidio said erasure isn’t enough the company needs to do a “secure-wipe” which may be difficult to find out.

“That means actually deleting and writing over the space where that message is stored on the hard disc or on the SSD drive,” he explained.

Another type of self destructing service is designed for texting. Tiger Text will allow you to send a message, which will then disappear from both phones. Each phone has to have the app installed in order to work.

But again, D’Ovidio urges anyone who might want to use this sort of service to make sure “gone” means gone for good.

He said make sure the company isn’t capturing your I-P address, that’s a computer’s digital signature which can be traced back to you.

That’s also a word of warning for anyone who might want to use self destructing messages as a means to hide bad behavior. No matter how well something is hidden, even electronically, it typically can be dug up by someone who knows how, and where, to look.

We did reach out to all of these services to ask exactly how emails are deleted but none got back to us. The sites suggest the link to the message is what’s erased, and not the message itself.

So while these sites may make things harder for identity thieves, just beware they are by no means a guarantee that your privacy is protected.

Written by Jeffrey Evans and Brad Brooks, Co-Founders, TigerText | May 10, 2012

(Featured on Becker’s Hospital Review)

Physicians are every bit as mobile physically as smartphone-driven communications have become virtually. When your “office” on a given day might be a dozen patient rooms at a hospital or two clinics 20 miles apart, the temptation to ask nurses to boil down their message to 160 characters and send via standard text messaging services is tremendous.

Physicians at 17-bed Mammoth Hospital in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., were doing just that, says Greg Young, information security officer for the critical-access hospital, located near Yosemite National Park. A former chief of staff at the hospital described a tedious and time-consuming process to Mr. Young for responding to phone messages or pages: As there isn’t a direct line to the medical-surgical department of the hospital, calls were routed through the switchboard, then to the right department, where the right nurse had to be tracked down. By then, the physician who initiated the call might have been interrupted by other matters.

Belinda Setters, MD, director of hospital services for the department of family and geriatric medicine at the University of Louisville, says residents and students reject the hoary old standby of earlier generations of physicians: pagers. “They already refuse to use the pager system unless there is absolutely no other means of communications available. They hate it,” she says. “Texting and simpler means of communication are coming whether we as providers embrace them or not.”

It’s clear that something like texting is needed for quick, direct communications for hospitals and medical groups, but the problems are clear, too:

• Standard text messaging using the common Short Message Service available on most phones is not secure. SMS does not comply with HIPAA.

• Using SMS puts protected health information on a variety of SMS servers from all the different mobile operators that employees contract with, leaving the PHI completely out of the control of the hospital or group practice.

• A hospital or group practice has no control over these personal devices and no way to audit compliance with privacy regulations.

• When devices are lost, the hospital or group practice has no way to wipe PHI from the devices or lock them remotely.

It’s a dilemma: Hospitals and physician groups must find a way to speed communications to ensure that decisions are made quickly for the patient’s benefit and to make their workflow as efficient as possible, but without jeopardizing the safety of private patient information.

The only way to do that is with a secure, real-time mobile messaging system that complies with patient privacy standards and offers hospitals and physician groups enterprise-level control over the personal mobile devices that employees and physicians will default to using because they are always at hand.

The compliance aspects of this dilemma shouldn’t be minimized – the Joint Commission has announced that using standard text messaging services is “not acceptable” and HIPAA audits conducted by HHS now include a review of an organization’s mobile compliance — but the value of such a platform to a healthcare provider goes well beyond compliance.

Using antiquated communication devices such as pagers and fax machines contributes greatly to the $150 billion that healthcare organizations waste on administrative inefficiencies each year. Nurses waste an average of one hour each day tracking down physicians, according to research published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The need from a workflow standpoint already has been demonstrated. Clinicians are using unsecure communications like standard texting when enterprises don’t provide an appropriate channel — 73 percent of physicians acknowledge texting about their work, according to our company’s research.

Nurses and physicians gain faster response times at every step in the process of caring for patients, making decision-making more efficient and timely and thereby reducing the cost of care. A secure communications platform also increases the accuracy of messages — 66 percent of sentinel events are linked to communications breakdowns, according to the Joint Commission.

Secure, real-time messaging can allow for greater communications than a phone call-based system in which physicians might choose to skip a consultation with a fellow physician in the interest of time, U of L’s Dr. Setters says.

Reading the message right on a smartphone — 81% of physicians reported having a smartphone in a 2011 survey by Manhattan Research — also eliminates misunderstandings that can occur on a phone call, Dr. Setters says. For example, physicians are often in noisy environments, such as a crowded hospital unit or clinic setting or while outside walking between buildings on a medical complex. Another source of miscommunication can come from sharply accented English spoken by foreign physicians, she adds.

Secure, real-time mobile messaging that works across both smartphones and traditional computers – like those found at nursing stations — ensure that physicians and nurses can stay in touch despite the wide variety of devices they are using. A robust mobile messaging system for healthcare also should be able to connect to third-party systems, such as electronic health records. It should improve accountability, as users can see whether their message was received.

All of these improvements should help with a major strategic goal of executives running hospitals, health systems and physician group practices — boosting physician satisfaction.

Changes in the healthcare industry, such as the pressures of reform and the continuing weak economy, are putting a greater premium on doing more with less. A HIPAA-compliant, real-time communications platform — controlled by the enterprise itself — is one way to accomplish this.

Jeffrey Evans and Brad Brooks are co-founders of TigerText, Inc., based in Santa Monica, Calif., the leading provider of secure, real-time mobile messaging for healthcare enterprises

“TigerText has not only addressed our communication security issues it has enhanced our workflow, ultimately improving our level of care and treatment to the end user – our patients”

As healthcare communication enters the electronic age, the pressure on SMB healthcare enterprises to meet security demands to protect patients’ Personal Health Information (PHI) are at a critical juncture. Many SMBs do not have extensive resources and budgets to communicate and protect PHI as large medical networks do yet they still face the same HIPAA regulations and risks to incur costly violations. TigerText offers an affordable HIPAA compliant communication solution for both small practices and large medical networks alike.

“Our SMB effort is a natural extension of our Large Enterprise initiative highlighting how TigerText has the flexibility to scale up or scale down to suit our customers’ needs,” says Brad Brooks, TigerText Co-Founder. “TigerText enables the primary care physician to coordinate patient care much more closely with the hospitalist in real-time, as their patients are admitted to the hospital. We believe this greatly improves quality of treatment while saving dollars as follow-up and care communication happens in step with treatment.”

“TigerText has not only addressed our communication security issues it has enhanced our workflow, ultimately improving our level of care and treatment to the end user – our patients,” says Karen Brimmer, Practice Administrator at Albany Gastroenterology Consultants.

TigerText has been adopted across practices of several specialties including Gastroenterology, Urology, Cardiology, Assisted Living Facilities, Skilled Nursing Facilities & Hospices, Rehab Centers and family practices. The application is available on any smartphone, tablet or web-enabled Mac or PC, making it ideal for organizations in which nurses may work on desktop PCs, while doctors and others communicate on the go. TigerText’s flexible platform and compatibility makes it unparalleled to any other product of its kind in the market today.

“With the release of TT2 we have achieved our goal of providing healthcare enterprises the fastest and most reliable HIPAA compliant text-messaging platform on the market today” says TigerText Co-Founder Brad Brooks. “We are thrilled to provide University of Louisville a HIPAA compliant solution that offers security, accountability, and productivity that SMS text-messaging and communication platforms like email cannot.”

“TigerText has dramatically helped my workflow. It has allowed me to efficiently and safely transmit and receive protected information in a very easy way,” Says Dr. Belinda Setters, University of Louisville’s Director of Geriatric Medicine and Hospital Services. “This allows me to spend more time talking with patients without having to step out of a room to answer a call or take a page.”

TT2 offers new features such as group messaging as well as delivery speeds equivalent to IM. For added security, network administrators can force pin lock protection as well as remotely wipe data from the app in case a device is lost or stolen. TigerText also provides the ability to track messages sent across its network for auditing purposes. Additionally, TT2 rides on top of TigerText’s robust APIs which allow for integration into third party solutions like EMRs and physician scheduling.

Like its predecessor app, TT2 works on any smartphone, tablet or web-enabled Mac or PC. The platform continues to provide its user-friendly features including an integrated company directory, delivery and read notifications, user controlled message lifespan, and image sharing. TT2 is now available for download on both iOS and Android with Blackberry migrating to TT2 next month.

About TigerText (www.tigertext.com)
TigerText is the #1 leader in secure, real-time messaging for the consumer and enterprise. TigerText allows healthcare providers and business to create a private and secure mobile messaging network with their own smartphone. This controlled platform is HIPAA compliant and replaces the unsecured SMS text message that leaves protected health and other confidential information at risk. The speed, compatibility, and ease of TigerText increases workflow and employee satisfaction.

For Press Inquiries, please contact:
Gina Vlosky
(310) 401-1820
gina@tigertext.com

04/20/12 (Featured on Nextgov)

Health IT companies are raking it in, flush with revenue from the sales of electronic health records as well as inflows of venture capital, according to the latest quarterly report from Dow Jones VentureSource.

Even though overall venture investments fell 18 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2011, investment in health IT companies soared 75 percent, VentureSource reports in a news release. Total venture capital raised in 18 health IT deals was $102 million.

The four health IT companies attracting the most venture capital, according to Forbes.com, were:

Kinnser Software of Austin, Texas, which raised $40 million from Insight Venture Partners. The company makes management software for home health businesses.

PerfectServe of Knoxville, Tenn., which raised $10.9 million from Piper Jaffray and several other investors. PerfectServe’s products help clinicians to communicate.

Truveris of New York City, which raised $10 million from New Leaf Venture Partners and others. The company’s products manage pharmacy benefit plans and track claims.

TigerText of Santa Monica, California, which raised $8.2 million from investors led by Easton Capital and New Science Venture. It sells a secure mobile messaging product.
Overall, health-care companies raised $1.5 billion in 165 deals, matching the 18 percent overall decline in investment as compared with the first quarter of 2011. Biopharmaceutical companies had the largest decline, as investors shifted money from biopharm to health IT companies, a VentureSource researcher told Forbes.
IT companies, on the other hand, managed increases in both the money raised and the number of deals — the only major industry sector to do so, VentureSource says. IT companies raised $2 billion in 257 deals, 14 percent more than the same period last year. Software was the strongest IT sector.

VentureSource reports are available only to registered users.

4/20/2012 (Featured on Forbes)

In sharp contrast to an 18% drop in overall venture investment in the first quarter of 2012, health IT companies raised $102 million—a 75% increase over the same period last year, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. The main drivers continue to be government subsidy of electronic health records, and the move toward so-called accountable care organizations, which reward hospitals and doctors based on patient outcomes.

The number of deals remained flat at 18, however, as more money flowed into existing portfolio companies, which included clinical decision support software, bioinformatics, and health care administration software. The latter represented the largest number of deals (9), followed by 4 in clinical decision support software. “We’re seeing a dramatic shift from biopharmaceuticals to these sectors,” says Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource. Investments in biopharma were down 46% during the same period.

Here’s the Dow Jones VentureSource top 4 health IT ranking:

1- Kinnser Software, Austin, Tex. Sells management software to home health agencies. Founded in 2003, it raised $40 million in March in a first round from Insight Venture Partners.

2- PerfectServe, Knoxville, Tenn. Sells tools to facilitate clinical communication among health care providers. Clients include Catholic Healthcare West and St. Jude Medical Center. Founded in 1997, it raised $10.9 million in February in a Series C round, led by Piper Jaffray; investors included National Healthcare Services (investment arm of MemorialCare Health System), and CHV Capital (investment arm of Indiana University Health System). Existing investors River Cities Capital Funds, Spring Mill Venture Partners and Village Ventures also participated.

3- Truveris, New York, NY. Manages pharmacy benefit plans and tracks claims payments for prescription drugs. Founded in 2009, it raised $10 million in a second round in February, led by New Leaf Venture Partners; investors also included First Round Capital, New Atlantic Ventures, and Tribeca Venture Partners.

4- TigerText, Santa Monica, Calif. Provides secure mobile messaging for health care providers. In February, it raised $8.2 million in a second round of financing, led by Easton Capital and New Science Venture.

Apr 17, 2012 (Featured on MobiHealthNews)

This week MobiHealthNews published its first quarterly report of 2012 — Mobile Health: State of the Industry Q1 2012. This edition actually marks the tenth “State of the Industry” report that MobiHealthNews has published since we began distilling our coverage into reports at the end of 2009. As always, it includes a roundup of the most important mobile health moves made by healthcare providers, health plans, mobile operators, pharma companies and others during the past three months.

Each of our State of the Industry reports also includes a roundup of the investments venture capitalists made into mobile health startups and companies as well as a list of the deals and partnerships we reports on during the quarter.

In total MobiHealthNews reported on more than $100 million worth of investments into mobile health companies during the quarter. Here were four deals that we believed to be notable, in no particular order:

Misfit Wearables pockets $750,000 seed round

Misfit Wearables, a new startup from the co-founder of AgaMatrix, Sonny Vu scooped up $750,000 in funding from angel investors including Sridhar Iyengar,Vu’s co- founder at AgaMatrix and John Sculley, former head of Apple from 1983 to 1993.

Misfit Wearables describes itself as “inventors and makers of cloud-connected wearable sensing products for fitness and medical applications.” Given Vu’s previous success at AgaMatrix creating the first FDA cleared iPhone medical device, the Nugget, the industry is expecting great things.

TigerText raises $8.2 million

TigerText, which offers secure mobile messaging to healthcare companies, announced an $8.2 million round of funding led by Easton Capital and New Science Ventures. This second round of funding brings the company’s total backing to more than $10 million.

The Santa Monica-based company’s flagship product, TigerText Pro for Business, enables HIPAA-compliant messaging between nurses, physicians, and other clinicians. More than 20 healthcare groups are using TigerText’s mobile messaging network today. The service runs on a number of mobile platforms, including Apple iOS, Android, and BlackBerry.

Physicians – like most everyone else – love text messaging, but sending health data via these unsecure messages is not HIPAA-compliant. Healthcare technology vendors that develop secure messaging platforms that are as easy and convenient to use as SMS are set to do well over the next few years. With this new round of funding, TigerText may be among them.

Glooko scoops up $3.5 million

Glooko, which offers a simple glucose monitoring logbook app and a cable that connects meters to iPhones, raised $3.5 million in its first round of funding, which was led by The Social+Capital Partnership, and included return backers Bill Campbell, Vint Cerf, Judy Estrin and Andy Hertzfeld, Venky Harinarayan, Russell Hirsch and Xtreme Labs.

Currently, Glooko offers just two simple products: A cable that connects seven of the more popular blood glucose meters to the iPhone and a free, simple companion iPhone logbook app that stores readings. Glooko has solved a simple connectivity problem but is moving slowly toward more regulated products: Developing apps that offered trend analysis or coaching would require FDA clearance and requisite quality assurance work. The company’s cable costs about $40 and is available on Amazon.

Glooko’s founder, Anita Mathew, has mHealth bona fides – she used to lead a similar project at Johnson & Johnson’s LifeScan.

Jiff secures $7.5 million

Palo Alto, California-based Jiff announced during the quarter that it had raised $7.5 million in its first round of funding. The investment round was led by Aeris Capital and included participation from Jiff’s founding seed investor Aberdare Ventures. The startup also announced that it had appointed former president and CEO of Robert Bosch Healthcare, Derek Newell, as its first CEO.

Too often patients forget what a doctor told them during an office visit by the time they have made it to their car, according to Jiff. The startup has taken that problem on with its first offering. Doctors give the same eight minute speech all day long to patients with similar issues, so Jiff wanted to help doctors create an app that captures that conversation and enables patients to revisit it as many times as they’d like. That saves time for doctors because it will hopefully lead to less follow-up calls and questions. Since the JiffPad app contains information assembled and narrated by the individual physicians themselves, Jiff is creating the type of app that physicians might be motivated to “prescribe” to patients at the end of an office visit.

For more, check out our Mobile Health: State of the Industry Q1 2012 report here.

The Santa Monica-based company’s flagship product, TigerText Pro for Business, enables HIPAA-compliant messaging between nurses, physicians, and other clinicians. More than 20 healthcare groups are using TigerText’s mobile messaging network today. The service runs on a number of mobile platforms, including Apple iOS, Android, and BlackBerry.

“Our strong sales pipeline attests to the growing recognition that hospitals and physician practices need to provide doctors, nurses and other clinicians with a HIPAA-compliant alternative to unsecured texting,” stated Brad Brooks, co-founder of TigerText.

Last year Brooks said that more than 70 percent of US physicians use text messages to discuss cases and exchange patient information with other physicians. Brooks made the comments during an online presentation last October. Soon after the Joint Commission added a comment to their FAQ that stated text messaging was an unacceptable form of communication for physicians:

“No it is not acceptable for physicians or licensed independent practitioners (LIPs) to text orders for patients to the hospital or other healthcare setting. This method provides no ability to verify the identity of the person sending the text and there is no way to keep the original message as validation of what is entered into the medical record,” the comment reads.

TigerText also offers a free consumer chat app for iPhones that lets users send messages to each other that “disappear” once they are read. Time Magazine called the app “stupidity insurance” while others said it was the perfect app for cheating spouses.

TigerText added two of its new investors to its board: John Friedman, Managing Partner of Easton Capital, and Somu Subramaniam, Managing Partner of NSV.

More details in the press release below:

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb 02, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — TigerText Inc., the leading provider of secure mobile messaging for healthcare enterprises, has completed a second round of funding of $8.2 million, bringing the company’s total backing to more than $10 million.

The Series A investment is led by Easton Capital and New Science Ventures to accelerate development of TigerText Pro for Business, its HIPAA-compliant, easy-to-use messaging platform. Doctors, nurses and other clinicians in hospital and clinic settings are using standard text messaging because they need to communicate rapidly, but those systems don’t safeguard the privacy of protected health information. TigerText offers the same ease of use and rapid response by providing a private network controlled by the enterprise in compliance with patient privacy regulations.

Already, more than 20 healthcare organizations are enabling their clinicians to communicate both more effectively and more securely with TigerText’s private mobile messaging network, which works on all the major mobile platforms (Apple, Android, and BlackBerry) and on computers.

As part of their investment, John Friedman, Managing Partner of Easton Capital, and Somu Subramaniam, Managing Partner of NSV, have joined the board of TigerText, Inc.

“The addition of Easton Capital and New Science Ventures as partners significantly accelerates our development,” said Jeffrey Evans, TigerText Co-Founder. “John and Somu bring their incredibly rich experience, based on decades of advising life-sciences and technology companies, to our already strong board. Their leadership will help the Company reach its vast potential to transform the way physicians and nurses communicate, bringing in-hospital communications from the pagers of the 1980s to the smartphones of the 21st century.”

“This additional funding enables us to continue building out the unique features of the TigerText platform, the first service that meets the critical need of secure mobile messaging for healthcare enterprises,” said Brad Brooks, TigerText Co-Founder. “Our strong sales pipeline attests to the growing recognition that hospitals and physician practices need to provide doctors, nurses and other clinicians with a HIPAA-compliant alternative to unsecured texting.”

Healthcare organizations recognize the dangers, but largely haven’t acted on them. In a recent study, the Ponemon Institute found that 81% of surveyed healthcare organizations used mobile devices to collect, store or transmit protected health information — yet half of these organizations admitted that they do nothing to protect the data on these devices and fewer than a quarter use encryption.

“TigerText has staked a unique position in the healthcare space,” Easton’s Friedman said. “Not only is there a critical need for its product, but the Company also has already proven the robustness of its business model. With virtually no marketing effort, its platform has been adopted by more than 20 healthcare enterprises, with many more in its pipeline. I believe that its fantastic product and strong management team position the company to truly revolutionize communication in healthcare.”

TigerText previously closed $2.2 million of seed financing in 2010.

About TigerText:

TigerText allows hospitals and physician groups to create their own private, HIPAA-compliant mobile messaging network for physicians, nurses and administrators. This controlled platform replaces the unsecured text messaging that leaves protected health information at risk. TigerText gives health care providers ultimate control over the messages they and their employees send, with features such as: Self-Deleting Messages (both on sender and receiver handsets), Message Recall and Forward Lock. TigerText works on all smartphone platforms and also has a desktop web interface. For more information, visit http://www.tigertext.com/ .

One part of our population that isn’t taking advantage of this technology to the degree that they should be is physicians, which strikes me as terribly behind the times. If kids  – current patients and future healthcare workers – today are texting as a primary form of communication, they will expect to be able to do so professionally in the very near future.

Now as we’ve all been made aware, non-secure texting between providers leaves information within those exchanges wide open during a potential breach of private health information. And HIPAA concerns abound. We’ve also heard stories of providers that disregard these concerns, texting private patient health information to colleagues on unsecured devices because it is the quickest way to get that information from point A to point B.

So, like most things in healthcare, it seems we’re going to need vendors to step up to the plate and offer a solution that providers will embrace, and we’ll need those same providers to develop protective strategies around use of such devices. I decided to poke around and see if there was anyone doing this right now, and came across a company called TigerText – a company that provides secure, HIPAA-compliant, mobile messaging.

I chatted via email with Jeffrey Evans and Brad Brooks to learn more about the technology, and the future of texting in healthcare.

Many healthcare organizations admit they do nothing to protect data on mobile devices, and even fewer use encryption. Why do you think this is? Was the technology not available before now? Were there too many types of devices? Did hospitals just have bigger priorities?
JE and BB: The shift from storing and transmitting health information data within the controlled confines of an office or hospital-based paper system to an electronic, digital data-to-mobile device system happened very quickly, so hospitals are behind the curve when it comes to properly securing the flow of this information.

When you think about how quickly this shift occurred, it’s useful to think in terms of the smart phone. Even three years ago, people weren’t constantly connected. People, especially physicians, weren’t texting all the time as a form of transmitting information, and they weren’t walking around with mini computers at the touch of a hand like they are today. Hospitals need to figure out a way to use this connectivity to benefit patients and improve overall care, but they also need to control it simultaneously. This shift happened so quickly, that many healthcare organizations simply buried their head in the sands, and resigned on finding a solution, which is why you see such high numbers in terms of failing to secure these devices.

Can you give me an example of a legal case that resulted from non-secure texting between providers?  What impact did it have on their facility and patient(s)?
JE and BB: We aren’t aware of any lawsuits based on non-secure texting, but HIPAA violations, which can carry civil penalties, are happening all the time: Breaches of protected health information (PHI) increased 525 percent in 2011, and 39 percent of PHI breaches have come on laptops and other mobile devices since 2009, according to a recent analysis of federal data. Breaches from mobile devices are likely to increase rapidly as more and more organizations adopt a bring-your-own-device approach to smartphones and tablets. Hospitals also risk their accreditation status with the Joint Commission, which announced last fall that transmitting PHI over unsecured texting channels was “not acceptable.” Additionally, the federal Department of Health and Human Services is now auditing mobile device compliance in its latest round of HIPAA audits that began this quarter.

Brad, how did you go from overseeing children’s media to an interest in technology and healthcare?
BB: A personal passion for technology and a family background in medicine led me to co-found TigerText. Prior to co-founding the company, I served as President at DIC Entertainment, a children’s branded media company, where I honed an interest in the ability to use mobile technology and the Internet for connecting people and organizations. In my role there, I helped launch first-of-a-kind, virtual “kids-only” worlds for the brands DIC worked with, positioning the company as a leader in online outreach and technology.

As the son and brother of physicians, I’ve always been keenly aware of the nature of healthcare delivery and the frustrations from a provider side. When the idea for TigerText first came up, I ran the idea past my brother [a physician who now serves as an advisor to the company], and his enthusiasm encouraged Jeffrey and me that we were on to something. My family of physicians helped me understand early on that this was a good disruptive change.

Mobile health is obviously a big part of the healthcare market right now, and seems to be key to newer coordinated care models and patient-centered medical homes. How does TigerText plan to evolve as the industry adjusts to new technologies, Meaningful Use deadlines, Accountable Care Organizations, etc.
JE and BB: TigerText’s goal is to be the best, most efficient messaging platform for the healthcare industry. To do that, we understand that we have to adapt and evolve as the industry and regulations governing it evolve. As it exists today, TigerText’s system is based on open APIs that can integrate easily with most systems that are moving healthcare information – desktops, smartphones, tablets, etc. Nurses typically aren’t carrying smartphones, so TigerText allows them to send and receive communications with physicians from a PC to the physician’s mobile device in a secure platform.

As the industry adapts to new technologies, new EHR criteria and new delivery models, TigerText can play a role. Our essential service allows hospitals and physician groups to create their own private, HIPAA-compliant mobile messaging network for physicians, nurses and administrators across platforms, including new technology. As care delivery and payment systems are redesigned, clinicians will have to work smarter and more efficiently, and TigerText helps them do that. TigerText is continuously looking to evolve and improve our business model and platform.

What has been the most popular feature of TigerText messaging, according to your customers?
JE and BB: The ability to see when a message has been received and then read is the feature that physicians and nurses have found the most useful. If a nurse pages a physician, it could take hours to hear back or even know that the physician has received the message. But with TigerText, nurses can see instantly if a physician has received and read the message or whether they should move on and ask another physician on-call.

What do you expect to talk with attendees about at HIMSS? Are you hoping to dispel the notion that texting is a no-go for providers, based on the Joint Commission’s announcement last fall that it is not an acceptable form of communication amongst providers?
JE and BB: We agree that mobile messaging through the unsecured, unencrypted SMS channel found on nearly all cellphones is a no-go for providers. However, hospital administrators should not cover their eyes to what is happening. Physicians and nurses are using SMS because it is acting like an efficient priority channel to exchange a lot of necessary communication during the course of a day. The time has come for hospitals and healthcare enterprises to embrace the smartphone devices their caregivers are bringing into the hospital by giving them a secure channel to communicate via text. By doing this, hospitals will actually lower costs, improve patient safety through better communication and improve caregiver satisfaction by lowering frustrating wait times.

We saw that physicians and nurses were using this inappropriate channel because they needed that speed to do their jobs. We provide them with mobile messaging, including text, images and documents that give them the speed and urgency of the common texting channel but on a secured and HIPAA-compliant platform. Our platform gives health care enterprises ultimate control over the messages they and their employees send, with features such as: Self-Deleting Messages (both on sender and receiver handsets), Message Recall and Forward Lock.

While the investment reflects the growing momentum on the part of venture capital investors to subsidize money into burgeoning health IT companies, it also signals an expected rise in the use of text messaging among healthcare providers and underscores the need for security as digitized patient information is increasingly accessed and exchanged via text messages.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company received the investment from Easton Capital and New Science Ventures, and it will use the money to accelerate development of the TigerText Pro for Business messaging platform. The technology provides a Software as a Service (SAAS)-based messaging model that allows doctor-to-doctor, nurse-to-doctor, and hospital-to-doctor communications as care teams coordinate patient care.

Furthermore, as physicians, nurses, and other hospital employees bring their mobile devices to work, the TigerText platform gives health organizations greater control over messages that are encrypted throughout the transmission process and at rest. For added security, clinicians can also use the product’s self-deleting messages (both on sender and receiver handsets).

[For more background on e-prescribing tools, see 6 E-Prescribing Vendors To Watch.]

“All messages and content in the application have a lifespan on the device, so after a set period of time (the clients control the lifespan of messages in their network, but typically lifespan is set from one to five days), the content is pulled from the device,” Jeffrey Evans, TigerText’s cofounder, said in an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare. “If a device is lost or stolen, the account passwords are changed and the content can be remotely wiped from the device.”

According to John Friedman, managing partner of Easton Capital, as more patient data moves from paper-based systems to electronic health records, the need for greater security around text messaging in healthcare will grow, and TigerText’s software is poised to address the growing security requirements that come with transmitting patient data using text messaging.

“That is the investment attraction. As more information is moving digitally, the need for a secure messaging system for Healthcare is paramount,” Friedman told InformationWeek Healthcare. “It is a very exciting, fast-paced, high-growth area. Healthcare communication has seen very little progress from the era of phones and pagers. The next 10 years will change the way the entire industry communicates.”

According to officials at TigerText, more than 20 healthcare organizations are using the TigerText private mobile messaging network. The software works on Apple, Android, and BlackBerry mobile platforms and on computers. The tool also allows for communication from a web-based console to a mobile device.

Companies offering secure text messaging will benefit from the increasing use of mobile devices, as well as from programs that expand text messaging in healthcare, such as Text4Baby, a free mobile information service that uses text messages to inform pregnant women and new moms on ways to improve their health, or the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Beacon Community Programtxt4health, which delivers personalized text messages to help people understand their risk for Type 2 diabetes. Programs like these help drive the use of text messaging in healthcare as well as the corresponding need to secure these messages.

“Secure texting has the potential to greatly improve physician communications,” Irene Berlinsky, IDC’s senior research analyst covering Multiplay Services, said in an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare.“Companies that provide easy-to-use, secure texting solutions will be well positioned to take advantage of doctors’ move to texting. However, the technology must be absolutely rock-solid to keep the industry’s trust.”