The Security of Your Data on Care3

Dear Care3 Members,

The recent WannaCry ransomware attack received global attention because of its widespread impact on multiple countries and industry data. What wasn’t reported was that the healthcare industry was a prime target of the attack..

Care3 takes the security of your health conversations and data very seriously. Care3 was unaffected by the attack and have had zero hacking incidents in the history of our company.

The danger posed by hackers to global healthcare information systems is at a critical point. According to a recent article in Fortune titled,Why Health Care Is Especially Vulnerable to Ransomware Attacks, here’s why:

Outdated medical systems are woefully unprepared to deal with a new class of criminals willing to hold patients' medical data, credit card numbers, and other personal information hostage barring a big payout. In fact, the FBI has issued several stark warnings about the unique and growing threat ransomware presents to health care companies specifically in the past few months.

And consider this from the same article:

There are some obvious reasons that make the medical sector such an enticing target for criminals. For one, health information is simultaneously intensely personal, accompanied by crucial financial information, and universal—after all, health care consumerism isn't so much a choice as it is an ontological necessity of being a human.

This emerging security threat is one of the main reasons we built Care3 with such high levels of security—AND why we want you to have the ability to control your own health data and that of your loved ones you care for. Healthcare Tech Outlook has recognized us a Most Promising Healthcare App because we give you and your family the power to control your own data in interactions with health professionals.

Electronic health records are controlled by health providers and your access is limited. With Care3, you control access to all of the data shared in your conversations, including medications, images, video, audio, appointment dates, care tasks, and any text conversations around the care that you have with your family and close friends. This is all vital information for the health of your loved ones and should be directly under your control. Care3 gives you that control.

We urge you to continue using Care3 for your most important health conversations and for sharing healthcare data between family members and any health professionals you’re working with. Care3 keeps your health information under your control and protected from the rising threat to healthcare industry systems.

It’s our pledge to help you care for your loved ones and that includes protecting your personal health information.

Take care,

David S. Williams III

Co-Founder & CEO

Care3, Inc.

Getting Care Instructions Like This Is Unacceptable

Hospitals MUST get better. Paper? A cross-out? Really?? #sendanaction #mhealth #TheCare3Way

Care3 and Congressional Repeal of FCC Internet Privacy Rules

Dear Care3 Family, As you may have heard, Congress rolled back the FCC’s internet privacy rules this past week. If the President signs this bill into law as expected, it would allow internet service providers (ISPs) like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cox and others to sell your personal online and mobile web browsing data and information on your mobile app usage.

At Care3, we want you to understand that we take privacy very seriously.

1. No third party can view your activity on Care3. Neither the government nor any ISP has access to your personal health information and that of your loved ones on Care3. When you use the Care3 app to send text and media messages back and forth with family and friends, each text is encrypted so no one can intercept the messages, pictures, or audio files as they pass from your phone to our servers. This extra layer of security causes our app to be a bit slower than what you might experience with iMessage or SMS texting (as they are not encrypted). But we think the added security is worth an extra second or two.
2. Care3 meets all government privacy and security standards for PHI storage. All data and media files are encrypted in our dedicated cloud storage facilities. Cloud storage services like iCloud, Dropbox, and others do not meet government privacy standards for storage of personal health information. Most people don’t know that. We want you to be confident that all of your health communications are safe and secure with Care3.

Note: Many popular messaging apps are NOT safe for healthcare conversations. The  apps above do not encrypt text messages traveling between your phone and their servers to the government's standard for health information, the highest level. They also neither encrypt nor retain your data as required by law for health information storage. With this lighter security, hackers have an easier time if they want to intercept your information.

Many of you have indicated that you will increase your usage of Care3 even for non-health related conversations because of the high level of security that Care3 offers. We encourage this as our executive team has also increased our usage of Care3 for non-health related conversations as of late.

We appreciate your continued use of Care3. We have just passed 2,000 families using Care3! Have confidence that your information and activity are safe and secure regardless of what privacy access Congress gives to ISPs.

If you have any questions about the privacy and security of your texts or other information shared on Care3, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Like we always say, we’re there for you because you’re there for others.

Take care, David S. Williams Co-Founder & CEO Care3, Inc.

The Big Problems for Home Infusion Providers & How Care3 Can Solve Them

by Amina Gass

Let’s face it being a home infusion provider is not easy, you often struggle with the complexities of care tasks, communication barriers, and oh yeah using the archaic mode of faxing over all of your paperwork.  What if I were to tell you that there’s a new technology out there that can make your life so EASY and all you had to do was just click and download?

Care3 is HIPAA compliant and uses mobile and social technologies to digitize and distribute care plans to community providers, patients, and family caregivers to coordinate care outside of the hospital.

Let’s take a step back and discuss the problem methods of home infusion therapy and see how Care3 can help solve them!

#1 Communication Barriers

Home Infusion providers face many challenges with communication. Whether you’re trying to call your patient (who may not even be the right point of contact) to schedule an appointment or waiting forever to get a hold of other care team members all increases frustration and we’re here to help! Using Care3’s secure messaging platform provides the ability to send in, report, and respond to all members of the care team.

#2 Care Complexities

Care plans can be very challenging. You have so much on your plate from juggling multiple patients with all different medication schedules to assisting with skilled nursing services, daily living, wound care, and much more.  It’s a lot of work and here’s how Care3 can make you successful:

• Collaborate - Patient monitoring just became a lot more seamless! Care3 enables Caregivers to write, track, monitor, set reminders followed up with all members of the care team to produce the highest quality of care.
• Protect - With Care3, consumers can store Personal Health Information (PHI), share PHI, and interact with healthcare professionals without going to another, unsafe platform.
• Organize - Medication management is HARD! Care3 helps solve this for you by safely documenting each patient medication regime inside our app.

Oh, and did I  mention NO MORE FAXING!  

Let Care3 help you by offering a solution that no one else can solve and that’s right at your finger-tips. Care3 produces fast secure messaging and makes caregiving easy by sharing tasks.

Work Smarter, Not Harder in 2017!

To learn more about how Care3 can help you and your company schedule a demo today!

Our CEO's Caregiving Journey

Everything good in me came from my mother. She almost died giving birth to me. After surviving that, my brother and sister and all our childhood shenanigans, her life was filled with health episodes. You can see her journey below. Her cancers (bowel, liver, lung, breast) permeated her life. Her bipolar disorder fueled her success, but sometimes at great cost. And her COPD and heart failure pushed her decline. My siblings and I were caregivers for our mother for the entirety of our adult lives.

CaringForMom

d3d4

Another personal caregiving journey began when my first child was born. He is my son and namesake, David S. Williams IV. My role as "not only a parent" but active disease caregiver came at 24 months when D4 was diagnosed with severe autism. Now 11 years old, D4 still can't talk, isn't fully potty-trained, but because of our obsessively active treatment, has lost almost half of his autism by measurement. He also exhibits some savant-like intelligence that we are actively feeding for future development. Add all of this and our very inquisitive 8-year old daughter and my wife and I must be supremely organized (we plan everything), well-researched, efficiently active, and perhaps most importantly, willing to bring family and friends we trust in to help us be the best loving and successful parents.

I've created Care3 to help us achieve this goal.

Care3 is the caregiving platform for people who care FOR and ABOUT others. It helps you create a care team, plan care tasks, and easily communicate with everyone. There was no Care3 during my mother's 10 year decline prior to her passing. Hospital discharge plans were given to us on paper. Sure we'd fill the prescription and follow the instructions, but things sometimes fell through the cracks. The care plan wasn't sequenced and delivered to us in a way that could be easily integrated into our busy schedule.

Coordinating activities with others was also difficult because even well-intentioned family and friends didn't know how to help. While we were able to nurse Mom back to a level of health where she lived her final two years in her home, my siblings and I were not local and still found it difficult to coordinate her care. Losing Mom caused a tectonic shift in my life and started the path of recognition that caregiving had to be made easier, communication simpler, coordination more efficient, and activities integrated seamlessly into a caregiver's life. You will find Care3 enables all of that.

If you've taken the time to read this far, you are likely living a similar life situation. I’m more than asking you to sign up for Care3 (iOS and Android). I’m asking you to use it for initiating your most important conversations—those that require confidence, security, and are only shared with those closest to you. Care3 is built to carry conversations about health of loved ones and protect that information as you engage in the action of care, and it’s worthy of having any private conversation.

Care3 isn't for every conversation, just the important ones.

Anytime you want to initiate and have a “safe” conversation and discuss private matters, use Care3. Regular SMS text is not secure and unworthy of your trust when it comes to privacy. Emails get lost in the chaos of daily life. I consider messages on WhatsApp almost semi-public because you can see everyone who is also on that app. Do you trust Facebook or its messaging app to protect your most important and private discussions? But on Care3, you can engage in REAL conversations and they will be responded to with urgency and treated with the utmost privacy. You can discuss anything in small groups or just 1:1.

Thank you in advance for downloading Care3. Use it to communicate with the people closest to you about the things that are truly important--like caring for the people who brought you into this world and the ones you helped bring in it.

Take care,

David S. Williams III Founder and CEO, Care3

How to Make Providing Care More Difficult by the 115th Congress

By William Mintz, MBA, MHA - Co-Founder, Care3. Last week Congressional Republicans made public their plan to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Accountable Care Act (ACA).  While the positive impacts of the ACA are well documented and undisputed by most policy experts, the legislation has its challenges.  Broadly speaking, people living in states that chose not participate in the ACA did not benefit as much as those in states that did participate.  To address the perceived failing of the ACA, the repeal and replace legislation titled the American Health Care Act, focuses mainly on health insurance coverage.  As it currently stands the AHCA would remove 14 million people from the insurance rosters next year and 24 million total by 2026.  While the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the AHCA will have a positive impact on the federal budget, leading industry groups have stated that the AHCA would do more harm than good.  

Sicker loved ones

The impact of the AHCA to caregivers will be significant.  Without access to health insurance people will become sicker placing a greater burden on their caregivers.  In the March 2017 issue of Health Affairs a study was released that concludes having health insurance would not only help people identify their chronic conditions, but it would help them bring the diseases under control.  While the research into the effect of health insurance on health is not 100% conclusive across all conditions, it is widely accepted that the best means to a healthier population is through increasing access to health insurance.

Less professional support

All early analyses of the AHCA indicate that it will have a negative effect on providers.  One of the landmark achievements of the ACA was to decrease the level of uncompensated care provided by doctors and hospitals.  Prior to the ACA, the estimates for uncompensated care were over $62 billion annually and growing.  With the additional revenue resulting from lower levels of uninsured and underinsured patients, providers have been able to increase service offerings and invest in population health management.  The ACA directly incentivises doctors and hospitals to provide more holistic care.  These incentives are being used to invest in population health management tools and services ranging from technology to home and community based services.  Of the hundreds of cottage industries created by the ACA some of the most helpful to caregivers are home and community-based services.  Without the ACA, access to these services would be much sparser making caregiving much more difficult.

Higher out of pocket expenses

The American Health Care Act does one thing well, it shifts the responsibility to pay for healthcare square on the shoulders of the consumer.  The mantra of personal accountability is embodied by this proposed legislation.  The AHCA emphasizes the use of health care savings accounts and tax credits.  These financing mechanisms along with the changes to health insurance regulations will make health insurance out of reach for most Americans.  Under the AHCA caregivers will have a catastrophic increase in out of pocket health expenditures.  Not only will insurance premiums rise, but so will copays.  Providers will increase initiatives to balance-bill patients as their revenue declines in step with the increase in uninsured and underinsured patients.  Caregivers already spend nearly $7,000 annually on out of pocket costs associated with caregiving.  Being a caregiver is already financially burdensome, and under the AHCA being a caregiver could be worse.  

The ACA was not perfect out of the gate, and that was very much by design.  Progress must not be halted because elected officials act like bickering siblings and seek only to undermine the opposition. Healthcare is expensive, and merely shifting the financial responsibility around does not help.  To make a lasting change providers and consumers must continue to adopt behaviors and technologies that can help them better manage their care. Remember that, at one time or another, we will all be caregivers or in need of one.

Events From This Weekend #caregivers #travelban

Care3 Family, This weekend has seen unprecedented activity with the US Government ban on immigrants from seven countries. Some of these detainees were doctors who practice at leading healthcare institutions that serve our loved ones, including a hospital system where my sister receives care.

No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we all want the best care we can get for our family and others. We can’t have our healthcare professionals unavailable to care for our loved ones because of poor policy implementation. We work too hard to keep our loved ones at their highest level and they deserve the best possible care.

Please contact your elected officials to raise your voice on behalf of all caregivers and the patients and loved ones we care for.

Take care,

David S. Williams III Co-Founder & CEO Care3, Inc.

5 Reasons You MUST Use Messaging Apps Secure for Healthcare Conversations

By David Williams, Co-Founder & CEO, Care3.

I admit it. As a caregiver for my mother for ten years, I didn’t worry about the security and privacy of her health information. In fact, I’ve spoken to hundreds of families caring for aging parents or special needs children. Never has ANYONE expressed the urgency to protect their loved ones’ health information.

And why should they? The focus has to be on the care delivered. We as caregivers have to keep our loved ones well, nurse them back to health, get them better, right? We don’t have time to think about every piece of information that we share with family members and how we share it. We can barely get through our own lives, with jobs, family, and other responsibilities. Thinking about information management is yet another thing—and sounds exhausting!

Unintended Consequences

But here’s the thing: disregarding the privacy and security of health information may actually have negative, unintended consequences. That is why it is so important to be careful how you share health information using mobile devices and apps.

Messaging is the #1 function used on mobile devices. We all know how to send texts, pictures, and other media using the popular messaging apps like iMessage, SMS, Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp just to name a few. But all of these apps have one MAJOR flaw:

NONE of them are safe or secure for healthcare conversations.

Wait, what? What does “secure for healthcare conversations” mean? How can these apps not be safe? The biggest names in technology are behind these apps: Apple, Google, Facebook. Don’t they know this?

Yes, in fact they do. It’s a conscious choice for them NOT to be secure for healthcare conversations.

What it means to be secure for healthcare conversations.

The US government has privacy standards for healthcare information transmission, transfer, and storage to protect patients’ personal health information (PHI). You may have heard of “HIPAA”, also known as “The Privacy Rule.”

The Health Information Portability and Accessibility Act regulates how healthcare providers are supposed to handle the PHI of patients. The Privacy Rule extends to providers and how they communicate with patients and families as well. And to repeat: NONE of the popular messaging apps meet this standard of security and privacy.

What qualifies as personal health information?

• Diagnosis

• Condition/Disease Name

• Medications (brands, generics, OTC, dosage, frequency, etc.)

• Doctors (by name or type of doctor)

• Care Instructions

• Medical Equipment

• Treatments (medications, supplements, rehab exercises, activities of daily living)

So whenever you’re talking to family, friends, or your healthcare provider about your loved one, you’re likely sharing information that includes PHI. That sharing can have consequences if not done with an eye on security.

What Are The Risks?

We have now entered the age of hacking and information security is at the forefront of the national discussion in areas including national security, elections, cloud storage, and yes, healthcare.

In the past two years, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, and other tech heavyweights have revealed that their systems have been hacked with millions of records being stolen. In healthcare, however, the privacy breaches tend to be personal in nature—like healthcare providers revealing the private health information of celebrities. Why? Because healthcare technology is held to a much higher standard of security.

Five Negative Consequences of using Apps Unsecured for Healthcare

1. Discrimination. The main area people worry about is discrimination by employers or insurance companies. Employers could use PHI to find ways to terminate employment for your loved one under legal means, even if the health condition is the main reason. Losing one’s job can have devastating consequences for healthcare access and quality. Because health premiums are calculated by risk pools, people with diagnosed health conditions tend to pay higher monthly premiums for insurance coverage. It’s amazing that a small thing like sending a text message over unsecured apps could lead to such NEGATIVE outcomes. Don’t let it happen.

2. Outing your Loved One’s Condition. In sharing PHI with a trusted family member, you may inadvertently “out” your loved one’s information. How, you ask? Because the popular messaging apps do not have privacy protections that automatically log out users if they haven’t logged in for a period of time. That means if your family member loses their phone, anyone who recovers it can access your loved one’s PHI. Even if the person leaves the phone out and it is picked up by a friend of theirs and accessed, your loved one’s information could be accessed. This type of thing happens all the time and you should keep that in mind when having healthcare conversations on unprotected, unsecure apps.

3. Taking Away Your Loved One’s Right to Privacy. Privacy is a right that we are all guaranteed by the US Constitution. But if you’re sharing the PHI of a loved one over an unsecured app, you have in effect taken away their right to privacy. There are channels that you can use to transmit PHI securely. If you choose NOT to use these channels, you are taking away a fundamental right out of your personal convenience. That isn’t fair to your loved one. They trust you to care for them, so they trust you with their health information. Do not betray that trust.

4. Giving Away Your Right to Health Record Storage. The Privacy Rule not only ensures the security of your health information across electronic pathways, it also mandates that records be kept for six years. This means that your loved one has the right to storage of health information that can be used to help them in the future. If you’re not using a messaging app secure for healthcare, then you’re giving away your loved one’s right to health data storage. The popular messaging apps don’t retain your messages for more than a few months to a year. Don’t give away the right to data retention. It can save your loved one’s life—and potentially others.

5. Losing Valuable Data. If you’re having conversations about the health of loved ones on unsecured apps, the information your sharing isn’t transferrable to a health record. This means that healthcare professionals can’t use that information to design better treatment plans and protocols because they don’t know what is going on outside of their offices and facilities. With a HIPAA secure messaging app, many of the data are shareable to your loved one’s electronic health record (EHR). That is a major benefit of using apps secure for healthcare and a major lost opportunity when not using one.

Make sure you respect your loved one’s right to privacy and security. Respect YOUR OWN right to privacy as well. All of these issues apply to you and your healthcare as well. You wouldn’t want anyone in your family outing your personal business to others whether or not it was intended.

What You Should Do

Download a messaging app like Care3 (download Care3 in the App Store or Google Play) that is secure for healthcare (HIPAA-compliant) to protect your loved one’s health information while texting with family, friends, and healthcare providers.

Time for Some Action

You are not alone. Time for some ACTION. #takeaction #100daysofdiversity #caresharing

Care3 Supports Women's Marches Around the Globe

Care3 supports all of the women's marches around the globe! Esp. in LA. #womensmarch

To Care Is Human.

Caring is the highest form of human interaction. Let others help you care for your loved ones. #caresharing

Want to Be a Better Caregiver? Follow These 3 Steps...

By David Williams, Co-Founder & CEO, Care3. In this post, I am going to show you how you can take the best care of your loved one, get them to their best health outcome possible, and keep you sane and successful at the same time—all with a simple 3-step formula.

The #1 Struggle Primary Caregivers Face Today…

I have talked to hundreds of family caregivers. They've told me their stories about the challenges they face and the emotional toll caregiving can take on themselves and their families. I kept hearing the same thing....I even posted on Facebook and the first three comments confirmed what I was hearing.

Care3 Post on Facebook

1. Letting family members know about Care3

2. Praise

and what I hear is the #1 struggle:

1. Getting family and friends to help.

Family Caregiving in 2017 (and Beyond)

You already know that caring for a loved one has to result in reaching a goal.

• Stay OUT of the hospital

• Stay ON medications

• Live INDEPENDENTLY as an aging adult

Most family caregivers don’t have a process in place to care. They do like I did at first. All of the medications and care tasks are written on paper.

Daily Instructions on Paper

When things change, though, how quickly does that system work? You spend more time updating the paper than giving care.

In 2017, we all use mobile phones. Why shouldn’t there be a mobile app that can help you care for your loved one and keep everyone in your family updated on the progress?

Shouldn’t the same also help organize the care tasks and get others to help?

Hmm….

I guarantee you that putting a process in place will help your loved one reach a care goal while also making your life smoother and easier. Using technology accomplishes this process even faster.

How My Mom Went from 12 Hospitalizations in a Year to ZERO.

This is us the day we moved mom back into her own home.

My brother, Mom, myself and my wife. My sister took the picture.

It was a happy day. We were a little nervous, but we knew that she could take care of herself. That was huge for our confidence…and her dignity.

This 3-Step Process Helped Us Manage the Care for Mom and Get Others to Help.

Here’s the reality:

Most people don’t use technology like mobile apps to manage the care for loved ones and communicate efficiently to family and friends.

If you aren’t organized then you can’t adhere to the care instructions. If you can’t adhere to care instructions, your loved one will end up in the hospital—or worse.

Don’t let that happen to your loved one. Caregiving is TOO IMPORTANT not to do right.

Step #1: Gather All of the Care Instructions and Make a List

First, gather all of your care instructions from all sources. You may have received care instructions via a brochure or printout after a doctor visit. You may have notes written somewhere like a medication list or something (ridiculous) like the BLANK worksheet I received one time from a hospital at discharge. How was this going to be helpful?

Discharge Worksheet

The point is, no matter how big or small, gather all of the care tasks that need to be done in one place and make a list.

For my mom, we had to gather discharge instructions, internet research, and written notes into one master list. We had to go through her prescriptions and medication history which was all on paper.

I entered the list into a spreadsheet and entered when each task needed to be done. It's a bit of work, but having that list made a HUGE difference in Steps 2 and 3.

Step #2: Decide Who You Trust

Second, think about the people who you trust to help you care for your loved one. Get the email addresses and phone numbers for everyone who wants to be kept updated.

Keep them handy for Step 3.

Get Your Trusted Team Together

Think hard about who NEEDS to be kept up to date and who WANTS to be kept up to date. Prioritize the needs first. These people may be your family or maybe even close friends, but they have to be people who will help YOU.

When caring for my mom, my siblings and wife were the main care team, but we added my brother-in-law at times as well as close friends.

We used a group email to keep everyone in touch with the big updates. Day to day we just sent text messages. Using the technology made it easier to keep people in the loop, but also for them to respond. I didn't spend hours on the telephone telling the same story over and over again.

Step #3: Share Care Tasks with Everyone So They See How To Help

When people visibly see what they can do, even if it’s small, they feel like they can contribute. Most of the time, they just need to see how to help ahead of time so they can work it into their schedule rather than someone trying to tell them what to do.

This worked wonders for us as we cared for my mom. Even my siblings who were thousands of miles away, were able to actively help. We would agree on what each person would do. I emailed the spreadsheet to everyone and managed who would do what. It was a bit of a pain, but better than paper to track things.

When we cared as a team, mom got better and better. Nothing fell through the cracks, which is what was happening when she kept going back into the hospital. Technology was helpful in coordinating all the moving parts. Everyone contributed.

That is the secret!

But something was still bothering me...

There had to be a way to avoid using three different technologies, email, text messaging, and spreadsheets. It was easier to coordinate than using paper, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it should be.

And it was THAT revelation that led to Care3.

Care3 Makes The 3-Step Process Faster and Easier

Nowadays using mobile phones comes second nature, especially messaging apps. We already create group messaging conversations with family and friends with the popular messaging apps supplied on our phones.

Why not use the same mobile behaviors of messaging, task reminders, and a calendar to care for loved ones? That's why we built Care3. To help you be a better caregiver. And we help you get started with the 3-step process as soon as you sign up and install the app.

Care3 helps you complete the 3-step Care-Sharing process

Step 1: Your Care Team

Step 1: Invite Your Care Team

Inviting your Care Team is as easy as adding a phone number or email address. Having your list of family and trusted friends ready will make this go very quickly.

Step 2: Your Starter Care Plan

Step 2: Your Starter Care Plan

Care3 helps you compile your care tasks with our Starter Care Plan. This is a list of eight common care tasks performed daily or weekly. Start with our list and add your own to customize in one step. It's that easy!

Step 3: Your Care Conversation

Step 3: Your Care Conversations

When you create a Care Team, Care3 automatically starts the group messaging conversation. When you finish your Starter Care Plan, you will be able to send text messages just like you would with any other messaging app.

Care3 is easy to get started, and works like any other popular messaging app.

The difference, however, is ENORMOUS:

With Care3 your text messages are private, confidential, and protected with industry grade security protocols. Rest assured that we treat your loved one's personal health information with as much care as you treat your loved one!

You Can Do This!

Right now, you have to take action.

Get started Care-Sharing now.

If you haven't invited your Care Team, do it.

If you haven't created your Starter Care Plan, do it.

If you HAVE done these things, then more power to you! You're ready to help your loved ones reach their highest level of health possible.

Good luck! We're with you every step of the way.

Questions or comments? Drop us a line at blog@care3.co/blog.