This afternoon MobiHealthNews is hosting its fifth online event for 2012: Texting in Healthcare. We'll be discussing an all-important topic for healthcare providers: secure messaging, both between providers and between providers and patients. In addition to a question-and-answer period with attendees, the webinar will also include presentations from Brad Brooks, President and Co-Founder, TigerText and Dr. Ernie Guzman, Program Director of Pediatric Residency at Adventist White Memorial Hospital. (Get your free registration for the event here, starts at 2PM ET today!)

Stage 2 for Meaningful Use requires some form of secure messaging in place to increase provider's engagement with patients: “[S]ecure email, a secure portal, even some type of mobile application could all be examples for secure messaging methods that could potentially meet this certification criterion. Along those lines, we decline to specify or restrict certification in this case to a particular transport standard because, again, we intend to permit a wide range of different secure messaging solutions, that will likely use different approaches and transport standards,” ONC states. Stage 2 was delayed one year -- it's now 2014 -- from its original mandate (2013), as called for in the original stimulus act.

In my presentation this afternoon I'll point to some adoption metrics and highlight different ways that providers are using messaging services with patients today. While there are many ways to leverage traditional SMS as well as secure messaging, meaningful use still puts it as a requirement that's a year or two out.

The greater need today might be secure messaging between providers themselves. Physicians -- like everyone else with a mobile phone -- apparently love texting. In an age of BYOD this can cause a real headache for CIOs looking to stay on the right side of HIPAA. TigerText's Brooks and Dr. Guzman will explain the drivers of secure messaging and other challenges that providers and healthcare CIOs face. Can secure messaging really wean physicians off of SMS?

The discussion begins this afternoon at 2PM EST/ 11AM PST. Register for the complimentary event right here. Have your questions ready and don’t be late!