Connecting the Entire Healthcare Community: Brightsquid
While medical science and tech advance quickly, the delivery model of Canada's healthcare has been late to catch the train to digital transformation. The result is a fractured and siloed system that suffers delays in care due to inefficient information exchange. These communication bottlenecks impede effective team-based treatment and balloon system costs. Brightsquid Secure-Mail modernizes the flow of information and centers care around patients for optimized and accelerated outcomes.
Brightsquid co-founder, Dr. Deepak Kaura (a pediatric radiologist), needed to communicate with specialists across the world and exchange diagnostic imagery with them. The only way to do so in compliance with privacy rules was to copy the files to a DVD or thumb drive and mail them. Patients needed expert answers faster than snail mail could allow. “That’s when the idea for Brightsquid Secure-Mail – a privacy-compliant email-like service capable of transferring large files and connecting care teams instantly – was conceived,” starts Rohit Joshi, CEO, and co-founder of Brightsquid Secure Communications Corp.
Under Rohit's leadership, Secure-Mail launched in 2009 and grew to help more than 35,000 healthcare practices across North America improve patient outcomes with better knowledge exchange. Secure-Mailis a modern communications service that healthcare teams use to share patient information more quickly and easily than ever before.
Secure-Mail users come from over 18 different healthcare professions and organization types, securely connecting with more than 130,000 patients. Collectively, users have sent 2.5 Million Secure-Mail messages, including 475,000+ attachments. Everyone one of them a replaced fax, letter, or phone call that expedites a critical transfer of information.
Professional users consult with experts, deliver treatment recommendations, screen patient panels, dispense advice, prepare patients, update treatment plans, and more without requiring the alignment of schedules. Clinics have reduced wait times by more than 90% and doubled the number of patients they can see in one day. Patients use Secure-Mail to keep in close contact with their entire healthcare team on one platform (reducing the risks of portal fatigue) and ensure greater treatment adherence for improved outcomes and lower cost to the system.
Secure-Mail supports healthcare environments specifically with features designed to fit existing processes. The shared inbox allows multiple staff to access and respond to, or triage messages sent to the clinic with a record of what was sent by whom. 500MB file attachments, read receipts, message recall, multi-organization membership, and a verified directory help staff be efficient and more productive, and compliant. As many communications in healthcare are standardized, Secure-Mail also allows users to create message templates with attachments for screening questionnaires, instructions, and appointment follow-up.
As healthcare clinics adapted to the realities of operating in the pandemic, many realized Secure-Mail supports virtual care and the adoption of other virtual care technologies. Using Secure-Mail to collect information about a patient concern in advance of phone or in-person consultations keeps patients and providers focused, and helps limit the length of consults that can otherwise get extended as patients filled their need for social interaction.
Use of Secure-Mail more than doubled to 90,000 messages a month in the early months of COVID-19 and has only grown since. “As clinicians looked to assess and treat patients remotely during the pandemic, we made Secure-Mail free for the first few months to doctors across Canada to support continuity of care and social distancing,” adds Rohit.
The Government of Alberta's MyHealth Records has integrated Secure-Mail into patient accounts to strengthen the exchange of information among patients and their care providers. Several healthcare regions have also implemented Secure-Mail to better connect the entire medical home and community, answering patient demand for more virtual access to care.
“We all want to know patients are getting all the care they need. And we know that the traditional ways of communicating in healthcare aren’t working. Clinics are proving the health and organizational benefits of Secure-Mail every day by improving access to care and system-wide efficiency.” Explains Mr. Joshi. Clinics using Brightsquid Secure-Mail have reduced wait times by more than 90% and doubled the number of patients they are able to see in a day. At first, established to speed up medical care and keep patient information safe, Brightsquid has gone beyond to connect the entire healthcare community around patients for an altogether healthier system.
“Brightsquid Secure Communications Corp. delivers modern communications services that help healthcare teams – including the patient – share patient information more quickly and easily than ever before.”
“We made Secure-Mail free for the first few months to doctors across Canada to support continuity of care and social distancing.”
“We all want to know patients are getting all the care they need. And we know that the traditional ways of communicating in healthcare aren’t working.”