Vonage Stories
Vonage's API Platform Lowers the Barriers to Care with HIPAA-Compliant Healthcare Solutions
Sanjay Macwan
It is vital that healthcare providers be able to deliver reliable and high-quality services, even when -- or especially when -- the unexpected happens. In an increasingly digital world, healthcare providers are looking to emerging technologies to augment their services and meet the changing needs of their clients. Recently, these trends have only accelerated, making technologies that can effectively connect practitioners and patients a crucial means of ensuring their health and safety, especially during the current pandemic.
With communications technology built using APIs, organizations in the healthcare sector are introducing creative solutions that enable them to deliver a secure, flexible, and real-time patient care experience, reducing much of the friction present in traditional provider-patient interaction. These solutions cover a wide range of telehealth use-cases, including:
Video telehealth consultations and assessments, such as via Vonage's best-in-class HIPAA-compliant Video API, featuring advanced security features such as encrypted media and recordings, and detailed analytics providing advanced insights into quality of service;
SMS and chat appointment and prescription reminders, as provided by Vonage's SMS API;
Secure two-factor authentication for streamlined and reliable authentication, a critical prerequisite to transmitting sensitive health and other personal data;
Flexible, scalable solutions, allowing healthcare providers to quickly add functionality such as live video to their existing website or application in minutes with one line of code, bringing convenience and efficiency to customer consultations.
Compliance is Key
Equally important is that these solutions provide their benefits in a manner that enables organizations to comply with strict healthcare security, privacy and data management laws and regulations. These include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, and an ever-increasing set of rules worldwide designed to protect the privacy interests of patients and other individuals. It is therefore critical for organizations that handle patient data to correctly implement these requirements, including by partnering with a provider possessing the platform, experience, and expertise to enable their customers' services in a compliant manner.
Vonage has designed its solutions to robustly meet both the useability and compliance requirements of our customers, to enable flexible, convenient, compliant solutions for a multitude of use-cases which achieve the highest standards of customer privacy and security.
Our HIPAA-compliant Video API platform serves millions of patients via the leading telehealth platforms worldwide. Features such as encrypted media and recordings, advanced firewall controls, regional media zones, and Advanced Insights enable organizations to readily tailor Vonage's services to ensure security and high quality into their own platforms. Healthcare organizations such as Teladoc, Doctolib, Doxy.me, InTouch Health and One Medical today use Vonage Video APIs to meet the surging demand of patients seeking advice and treatment remotely, in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 at hospitals, clinics and medical offices.
In response to the health crisis, Doxy.me, a cloud-based electronic medical records (EMR) and telemedicine solution, reported 139,000 new providers and 1.35 million patients using telemedicine in just a week. On March 24th, Doxy.me supported over 600,000 doctor-to-patient video sessions with over 11M video minutes in a single day.
Beyond video, Vonage's platform can be readily incorporated into a wide variety of use-cases in communications channels such as voice, SMS, and chat, enabling healthcare organizations to offer solutions that are compliant with applicable laws and regulations. Along with a robust GDPR compliance framework, Vonage offers compliance-centric features such as auto-redaction of communications records and regional data routing to meet enhanced privacy requirements and reduce risk for customers and individuals. Our experienced team of healthcare solutions architects and engineers is ready to help you achieve HIPAA compliant solutions tailored to a myriad of use-cases whether in video, SMS, voice, or otherwise.
Our security measures are backed by a secure core network with edge-based security, Stateful Firewall Protection, voice traffic encryption between handsets, and System Hardening Procedures at each of our co-located data centers. We are also on-track to achieve ISO 27001 certification for our legacy services including SMS and voice later this year, to further confirm the alignment with information security best practices.
At Vonage, we recognize that our customers not only need a robust and flexible platform to enable their business; but that it rests on a strong foundation and understanding of our mutual compliance obligations. Visit our healthcare page to learn more about how our technology can help you deliver care remotely.
We have released several new free solutions for healthcare providers that don't currently have the ability to operate in remote environments in response to the COVID-19 health crisis. Find out more about Vonage's current free and discounted offers.
By Sanjay Macwan Chief Information Security Officer
Sanjay Macwan joined Vonage in 2018 as SVP, Enterprise Engineering and Networks, leading Vonage's enterprise platform and engineering teams to drive innovation and new development in the Company's solutions for Enterprise customers. In 2019, Sanjay was appointed Chief Information Security Officer. In this role, he is responsible for securing and managing the Company's information security and risk management programs, as well as its portfolio of compliance certifications. With more than 20 years of experience in technology leadership, strategy and execution, Sanjay has built and led highly successful technology innovation programs that have delivered transformation, operational efficiency and a sustained culture of innovation across multiple industries. Prior to Vonage, Sanjay was the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at NBCUniversal focused on driving innovation across all lines of business. He helped the company deliver next-generation content experiences leveraging emerging technologies including virtual reality, augmented reality, ultra-high definition, IoT and machine learning across various platforms. Earlier in his career, Sanjay also led AT&T's Technology Council in the Chief Technology Office where he was responsible for accelerating technology innovation for the company and its ecosystem. During many years at AT&T Labs, he also led large scale R&D in multimedia, mobility, information security and cloud. Sanjay is the founder of The Holmdel Idea Summit (THIS) – a STEAM program connecting talented high-school and college students with accomplished innovators and local business leaders. Vonage is a proud sponsor of this community initiative, which was held for the first time in 2017. As an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Sanjay teaches a class called Emerging Technology Ventures class. He holds more than 50 U.S. patents in areas of mobility, multimedia, content, security, and cloud.