How Do You Use Jott?

Are there any concerns with US physicians using this in regard to HIPAA?

I would think that there would need to be some type of legal contract between the physician and the service in order to cover both sides if this is to b used for patient-related information.

In our system, and vendor that has access to patient information must sign a Business Associate Agreement.

Just a thought...

Not sure of the HIPPA requirements, in most cases it seems little actual information could be present in 15 seconds and would require traffic analysis -- like, there might be weaker links than this.

IMO, Jott implementation just doesn't cut it. It's really a mental note service, but if that's the case it should be all feedforward -- instead I forget half of what I was going to say before I get it out waiting for the call to initiate and to hear it's dumb questions. Furthermore, it's transcription is lousy because the voice quality is so lousy wherever you'd be using it. It's real prize is that it works in a pinch, but it's not the go to guy. I'd much prefer to see a real dictaphone, with transcription used just well enough to label & index the "jotts" (post-processing is fine). I've considered trying to make this. It could be archtitected offline or online, depending on the viability of business models. -Ed

I think HIPAA compliance is a concern but who really knows that you are using Jott? If we can use meds in off label fashion, we surely can use Jott.

In terms of quality, we've been quite pleased with Jott's transcription capabilities.

The HIPAA problem is a concern. This clearly falls outside the scope of a protected record. One would have to use this exclusively for their personal To-Do list, and not anything containing patient identifiers.

In response to DrO, this question is different from off-label use of medication. Releasing medical data to a non-covered entity is illegal. You may be correct that the chances of you getting caught are small, but would result in large financial penalties and if the practice is widespread in your hospital, loss of JCAHO accreditation.

In contrast, prescribing medication off-label is legal. The legal limitation created by FDA approval is that a company can only market the drug for the approved indications. A doctor can prescribe any FDA approved drug to any patient for any reason. If harm comes to the patient the doctor could be sued for malpractice, but the burden of proof is more than prescribing a drug off-label.

I have used PhoneTag for a couple of years in the same fashion. It transcribes voice mails to text...it in combination with GrandCentral to screen calls is hugely helpful for me. Essentially i do not have to interrupt with a patient or a procedure for any unnecessary calls. As well, it is a great way to send myself reminders as i forward the texts as emails.. There is a new service that automatically does that as well.

First of all in terms of the HIPPA requirements, I can tell you that PhoneTag is working on getting fully HIPPA certified but as of right now we are not. So for any medical people using our service (I will let the execs from the other services talk about what they have) do not use it for anything that would come in contact with HIPPA issues.

However with that said our service has been very attractive to medical professionals as like the comment from Michael it allows people to screen their calls without disrupting what they are doing. A doctor with a blackberry and the PhoneTag service can very easily glance at their voicemail when they are with patients and if the voicemail is something that needs their immediate attention they can deal with it, if not they can just handle it later.

It is great to see that the overall industry is starting to get more visibility, so thanks for the post.

Jamie

James Siminoff, Founder
PhoneTag

How is Jott fundamentally different from a notepad that can be lost and fall into the wrong hands? Simply because the data resides on remote servers does not mean that it is passed around or shared with others. Jott gives access to the recordings only to the individual with that account, so it by definition satisfies HIPAA since no sharing of information occurs. I understand that technically Jott has the data, but its like saying that my notepad is another party and I should simply memorize everything. Also, systems like Google Health don't need HIPAA certification since they're not part of the health insurance system, and so Jott shouldn't need it either.