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Mobile technology company Diversinet has announced enhancements to its MobiSecure platform to enable tighter security on smartphones as doctors and patients interact electronically.
The new capabilities could improve doctor and patient collaboration and boost patient health outcomes, according to Diversinet.
“Our technology is fundamentally contributing to that next wave of patient engagement,” Dr. Hon Pak, CEO of Diversinet, told eWEEK.
Diversinet previously focused on the financial sector—and still has some customers in that industry—but has transitioned to focus on mobile security in health care, said Pak.
Announced on Oct. 25, Diversinet’s upgrade to MobiSecure includes autonomous alerts, which can send notifications such as appointments or medication reminders to patients even if they don’t have an active cellular or WiFi connection. This can help patients in rural areas receive alerts from doctors, according to the company.
“Customers told us that they’re not already connected and they need to get alerts or reminders regardless of whether they’re connected or not,” said Pak.
The enhancements also include app wakeup, a feature that can wake up a device that may be off or in sleep mode to issue an alert. With the app wakeup feature, the need for multiple clicks to open an application will be eliminated, Diversinet reported.
App wakeup allows doctors to push lab test results to patients without waiting for them to open an app, said Pak.
Another new feature is remote data wipe, which IT managers can use if a phone is lost or stolen.
“Now if we get a call that a phone has been lost or stolen, we can push it and it automatically wipes the data,” said Pak.
The MobiSecure platform consists of a provisioning server that provides automatic device recognition and classification, direct app downloads and dynamic over-the-air provisioning of security credentials.
The platform also includes a validation server that provides password validation, data encryption and decryption as well as symmetric key management.
In addition, the MobiSecure platform features a gatekeeper server, which performs auto registration of authorized users and devices as well as authenticates with onetime passwords. It also offers encryption and decryption for mobile applications.
On Oct. 16 Diversinet received a Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 validation for its encryption technology in MobiSecure. FIPS 140-2 is a standard governed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The standard enables Diversinet to assure customers such as health care providers that data is secure at transit and at rest, said Pak.
Encryption enables the mobile devices to securely connect with medical devices, he said.
MobiSecure allows health care organizations to store a virtual wallet on their smartphones, according to Pak. Virtual wallets act as a secure container to store information on the phone, such as a list of medication or health problems, said Pak. The information can be transmitted securely to other providers using the federal government’s Blue Button tool, developed by the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services.
Blue Button allows users to download personal health data, such as medications, allergies and test results in PDF or ASCII text files.
“What we have the ability to do is to collect those types of data or profiles to help organizations and clients customize and personalize communication and content for the goal of engaging and activating patients,” said Pak.
MobiSecure is a cross-platform service, said Pak, noting that it identifies the hardware and automatically sends the software and updates for a particular mobile OS, such as Android.