The Bridge Blog

By engaging patients and encouraging participation in their healthcare, organizations can ensure a greater number of health goals are met. Of course, patient engagement can be a challenge, but a successful plan starts with a realistic goal. Do you know what percent of patients your organization should initially attempt to…Read more

More and more health organizations are implementing publicly-exposed web technologies containing Protected Health Information (PHI) which are subject to the laws of HIPAA. Common examples of such systems include Electronic Health Record (EHR), web portal, patient portal software, and mhealth solution. When those systems become integrated, PHI must travel from one…Read more

With the MIPS reporting period deadlines just around the corner, we at Bridge Patient Portal are seeing a surge in attention being directed towards the MACRA program as patient portals make up an important part of MIPS scoring. While the MACRA program already began at the start of 2017 many…Read more

Updated on January 18, 2021. Why secure patient-provider communication is required Patients require open communication with their healthcare providers before and after their appointments, and with the rise of telehealth, SMS/email communication is even more prevalent. It has been found that patients are moving away from live telephone calls and…Read more

For more than a decade, healthcare institutions have been using electronic health records (EHRs), as well as standardized templates for files containing medical information, in order to share data electronically.  By 2011, the number of physicians using EHR systems had grown to 57% – and since then, with the introduction…Read more

It pays to keep patients happy, and many certified patient portal vendors just aren’t cutting it. While this is mostly the result of software vendors focusing solely on Meaningful Use/MACRA requirements, it also has to do with vendors not investing sufficient resources in research and development (R&D), and in simply…Read more

Interoperability is necessary for the attainment of a more efficient healthcare system and the use of HIEs. It puts important patient data at physicians’ fingertips, allowing for more informed decision-making and better continuity of care. Interoperability is on the rise, spurred by government efforts to increase health information exchange; however,…Read more

We’ve come to the final installment of our three-part series decoding the Security Rule section of HIPAA in connection with healthcare application development. This rule’s detailed guidance on the degree to which the transmission and storage of electronic protected health information (ePHI) must be kept safe makes it especially relevant…Read more

Updated on November 24th, 2021. This is the second part of our three-part series discussing the Security Rule section of HIPAA compliant healthcare application development. Here we’ll go over HIPAA auditing, what it means, why it must be done, the implications of not doing so, and how you should conduct…Read more

Updated on July 23, 2020. Of the three main components of HIPAA (the Privacy Rule, Security Rule, and Breach Notification Rule) the Security Rule is particularly relevant to healthcare mobile app development. The majority of these applications, from patient portals to mhealth apps, store or transmit electronic protected health information…Read more