Telemedicine Security and HIPAA: What if you lose your iPhone?

You’ve followed HIPAA, now you’ve lost your phone. Now what?

It happens more than you would think. In 2011, statistically, each owner lost his phone at least once.

The most common places to lose your phone are:

Coffee Shop
Bar
Office
Restaurants
Apartment & Condo
Grocery Store
Gas Station
Residential
Pharmacy or Drug Store
Park Source: Lookout Mobile Security March 22, 2012. Image: Wikihow.com

Since for many of us, the “office” is the floor, the ER or the Operating room, and we rarely get to the park, the grocery store, or bar, the list shrinks considerably.

Here are some suggestions for not losing your phone:

Keep it in the same pocket all the time, pants, shirt or pocketbook.
Pat that pocket as you do your wallet.
Don’t hold it, put it away.
When at home keep it attached to the charger. Don’t let children play with it. It is a good substitute babysitter, but easier to lose, believe it or not.
In the operating room, check your scrubs before they go into the laundry. If placed on a table or shelf, keep it away from the rest of the equipment and supplies.
When using Medical iPhone Photography, take the picture, put the phone away, and then do your procedure. For instance, laying it down on the bed while changing a dressing has two problems: (1) The patient lies on it and gets another pressure sore or (2) you lose it and the picture you just took.

Medical collaboration is not enhanced by searching This brings us to why we at ClickCare are making note of this study. First, replacing an iPhone is expensive. But, paying the HIPAA and HITECH fine is worse. A $500 loss could quickly become a $50,000 loss if the phone compromised patient privacy.

Second, if the picture is lost, and as the saying goes—you may have had only one shot at it--collaboration is that much more difficult.

iClickCare was specifically designed to solve these problems.

First, even if your phone is lost, the pictures which were taken are hidden within a secure log-on barrier. Second, when an iClickCare visit or consultation is created, the data is sent, stored and available on the secure server. You may have wasted $500, but you have not lost your patient's information.

If you have lost your cell phone, just call or text it. Maybe someone can answer it. Let it ring long enough for them to pick up. Provide contact information in the text.

The iPhone has the Find My iPhone feature. You can also kill the iPhone remotely. Here is a helpful article from PCMag about different phones and different choices. Another good article is in www.wikihow.com/

If you are lucky, like us, the nice people at the Roscoe Diner will put it behind the cash register for safe keeping!