A new smart-phone app, created with the help of a Western University associate professor, will allow doctors to ditch their aging pagers.
PageMe is a first-of-its-kind app that allows healthcare professionals to message each other about patient care in a secure and confidential way.
Dr. Brian Rotenberg from Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry teamed up with Francis Yanga and Andre Ross to create the app through their newly formed company, Citruvio Communications Inc.
“We realized there was a disparity between what physicians want to do, which is text about patient care, and what Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act regulations say, which is that texting is not a secure way of doing things,” said Rotenberg. “Francis and I realized that there must be a modern solution, and that’s where PageMe comes in.”
Until now, physicians had to rely heavily on pagers, a technology that is quickly becoming obsolete.
The PageMe app has several layers of security, including encrypted transmission of messages to a secure server, password protection, and a self-destruct feature that erases messages from the device and the server after 12 hours. The app doesn't allow screen shots or users to save photos or videos to the phone's camera roll. Only those who have been accepted into an individual’s network can send and receive messages through the app.
"We think this app will be used by tens of thousands of doctors and medical trainees across Canada,” said Rotenberg. “We can also see its application for nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists and others who routinely share information about patients and their care.”
