Diversinet targets healthcare industry with secure mobile solution

Diversinet Corp. is expanding its mobile security solutions to address the mobile healthcare business, as the fledgling space evolves and mobile technology becomes more integrated into the healthcare system.
The broad-reaching solution is designed to connect people with their healthcare information, as well as physicians and insurance companies, said Jay Couse, Diversinet’s senior vice president in charge of the healthcare initiative.
While mobile healthcare initiatives are starting to gain traction, and it’s easy to imagine how wireless technology could help improve the healthcare industry, healthcare remains fragmented between patients, hospitals and insurance companies, and the industry is governed by HIPAA laws that make privacy issues a top concern, said Couse. Diversinet is targeting health insurance companies, large hospitals and large employee groups as well as healthcare infrastructure providers. “The really big issue is interoperability from the provider to the payer or the third-party case management company.”
Diversinet’s solution is a gateway between these end points that allows information to be shared, and just as importantly, tracked to comply with privacy regulations. Specifically, the company is introducing a service called MobiSecure SMS, which helps healthcare providers exchange sensitive information instantly with patients via any mobile device in a secure and trusted environment. The service could be as simple as sending an SMS reminder to an asthma patient to take their daily medication.
Beyond that, the company has introduced MobiSecure Wallet and Vault R4.0, which features over the air branding and software development kits that let healthcare providers launch their own branded m-health services.
Diversinet teamed with Blue Sky Family Health Team in North Bay, Ontario, for a three-month pilot that was expanded until June on what it is calling a Mihealth initiative. The test project enables 100 patients to access their medical records 24/7 securely on their wireless devices. The solution not only empowers patients but also is a way for the healthcare provider to reduce costs, Couse said. People can use the service to get reminders of healthcare appointments, grab immunization records for children who may need the information to be able to participate in school sports or summer camp, for example, or to access information quickly during an emergency or when something happens while the person is out of town.
The No. 1 holdup in getting mobile healthcare off the ground is the security and authentication issues, Couse said, which Diversinet addresses in its products.
“Our mobile expertise puts us in a position to meet the growing demand for secure application solutions in the healthcare industry,” said Diversinet CEO and Chairman Albert Wahbe in a prepared statement. “We have invested more than $80 million in our MobiSecure technology platform over the last 13 years and have built up a significant patent portfolio. Given government and industry mandates to move to a more efficient and effective electronic system of healthcare information management, we believe this is the ideal time to focus our solutions on healthcare providers, payers and patients.”
“We have extended our pilot of our Mihealth system from Diversinet based on patients’ and physicians’ very positive response to how it is linking patients, physicians and clinical workers,” said Dr. Wendy Graham, a lead physician with North Bay’s Family Health Team in Canada. “Mihealth is enhancing patient engagement, awareness and participation in their care, as well as helping us improve relationships with patients while streamlining practice management.”
The Diversinet platform also helps prevent fraud because it secures the electronic delivery process, said Couse. While people talk about stealing credit cards, stealing healthcare cards is actually a big business. Some estimates say that 10 cents of every dollar spent on healthcare is spent on fraudulent activities and that $100,000 in medical procedures have been done based on fraudulent activities.
And like with many other mobile applications, the Apple iPhone changed the game as doctors realized they could do more with a mobile device and started asking for applications that could enable them to do their work more efficiently, Couse noted.