solved In an effort to meet clinician and staff needs for

In an effort to meet clinician and staff needs for timely communication while maintaining patient confidentiality, several EMR/EHR developers have built in complementary in-program text-based communication systems. This learner’s current facility of employment utilizes EPIC, which as a dedicated EPIC Secure Chat functionality; while a patient’s chart can be tagged for reference, the actual conversations are not part of the patient’s record, nor are they discoverable (per our legal department…gee, I hope they’re correct!). Use of secure messaging applications within a vetted HIPPA-compliant EMR/EHR framework has been shown to increase interprofessional collaboration by allowing for providers on different schedules and in differing physical locations to participate dynamically in patient care (Liu et al., 2019). As with any text medium, participating collaborators will need to maintain awareness of professional communication standards and the challenges to interpretation inherent in text as opposed to spoken communication methods.