In our personal lives, Americans have grown used to giving up personal information to technology in exchange for convenience. We manage passwords using smartphone keychain and apps. We share our emails, phone numbers and birthdays to get store coupons. We save our credit cards in online shopping carts.

As healthcare professionals, however, we are cautious—fearful, even—of dealing in personal information because of the 5-letter abbreviation that looms over our work: HIPAA.

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, became law in 2002 and was designed to protect the private information of patients and to make sure they are well informed about their choices and their consent for those choices.

Yet even as far back as 2003, HIPAA recognized the need to balance patient privacy and efficiency for healthcare providers. In fact, HIPAA makes digital patient engagement, education and care management easier than you may think.

As more hospitals turn to same-day discharge for joint replacement patients, it’s more important than ever to make sure those patients know what to expect, how to care for themselves post-op and how to get the most from their recovery at home.

"Why wouldn’t we build our own patient engagement solution in-house?”

It’s a question we hear often enough from hospital and health system marketers that we figured we should blog about it.  

While you could, in theory, build a homegrown digital health tool for engaging patients, it makes more sense to choose a company that has been doing this successfully and proving its effectiveness and value for the past 15 years. Such as ... ahem ... one company I know.

Here are 5 good reasons why:

On June 26, NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff published Secrets Of Breast-Feeding From Global Moms In The Know, highlighting different cultures' approaches to breastfeeding. What follows is a response on how healthcare technology can make up for what American women lack in terms of breastfeeding support. 

NPR's spotlight on the challenges that U.S. women face when it comes to breastfeeding in this culture is critically important for new moms learning to breastfeed.