How Technology Can Help Therapists during this Crisis

Transcript

Alicia: Hello everybody, thank you for joining us today, my name is Alicia Kay and here we have Gil Vidals, the CEO of HIPAA Vault, which is an MSSP specializing in HIPAA compliant cloud services. So one thing that’s kind of been on my mind are therapists and how they’re supposed to go on with their business and helping their clients during this time where we’re not really supposed to be interacting with people. So how can technology help therapists in this day?

Gil: Yeah, I’ve noticed we’ve had a surge in requests from therapists, I think because of the COVID crisis, we all know about that, and we can really help them protect their medical data in the cloud, and one thing that therapists are starting to use more and more of course is the video I think.

Alicia: Yeah they are relying more on the technology, so what exactly could HIPAA Vault do to help the therapists?

Gil: Well, they call us, or when they call us, we can provide them an encrypted email so that when they reach out to their clients to make an appointment or discuss their situation, that’s protected. Then we could advise them as to what kind of video technology to use, but there are some downsides to using video. Have you thought about any of those downsides?

Alicia: I guess you just can’t pick up on the physical cues as much you know, if the patient is feeling stressed, is that what you’re talking about or just security wise?

Gil: Yeah, no I think it’s true, if a therapist is watching their client carefully and they’re wringing their hands but they’re below the video line they can’t see that, and then sometimes the video freezes in the middle. Sometimes that happens because the client may have slow a connection.

Alicia: Yeah, so the technology is definitely not a permanent solution but it’s enough to get us through this time.

Gil: Yeah, I think it can work well. I think it can work well even with those deficiencies, I think it’s worth them using that, and we can help them with that, set up the, again the encrypted email, set up the video, even set up a secure WordPress site to display all of these technologies that they can use to help their clients.

Alicia: Okay, awesome, thank you so much! Yeah if you’re a therapist out there and you’ve kind of been struggling during this time, please let us know and we’ll help you get set up and help you continue interacting with your patients!