Designed to provide a comprehensive view of patients in one central location, Salesforce Health Cloud is a flexible technology solution that promotes seamless collaboration and more personalized engagement. While patient management software can help streamline daily tasks and lead to better outcomes, it’s important for healthcare organizations to keep HIPAA compliance top of mind. Let’s explore whether Salesforce Health Cloud meets these standards, what security measures are in place, and why a HIPAA compliant email solution is a critical piece of safeguarding sensitive information.
In order for a third-party vendor to be considered HIPAA compliant, a business associate agreement (BAA) must be signed by both parties. This written document outlines the responsibilities of the business associate to keep protected health information (PHI) secure. Salesforce offers a BAA that includes Salesforce Health Cloud. However, it’s important to note that this BAA only covers data residing at rest within the Salesforce platform. According to the company’s website, “It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure the secure transmission of PHI data to and from the HIPAA covered services.”
Data security is another crucial element of maintaining compliance with HIPAA requirements. This means covered entities should carefully consider the specific steps that a vendor is taking to protect PHI. Salesforce automatically implements a set of core safeguards for all of customers that have entered into a BAA. This includes continuously monitoring the service for security violations and enabling audit logging to track activity changes. Organizations can also take extra steps to secure PHI through several customizable controls. These configurable tools allow system administrators to establish strict password policies, create permissions around data visibility, and determine rules for accessing different types of information. In addition to these measures, Salesforce Health Cloud offers a HIPAA compliant mapping feature. This ensures that in-home healthcare providers keep sensitive patient data protected.
Yes, Salesforce Health Cloud can be made HIPAA compliant with a signed BAA. However, it is the organization’s responsibility to assure that the platform’s security settings are appropriately adjusted to minimize unauthorized access and prevent suspicious activity.
While the Salesforce Health Cloud infrastructure is designed to meet HIPAA requirements, covered entities are also required to protect data in motion. That’s why it’s crucial for healthcare providers to safeguard PHI at every stage with stronger email security.
Built to seamlessly integrate with your current email platform such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, Paubox Email Suite automatically encrypts each outbound message to enable HIPAA compliant email by default. This eliminates the time and stress of deciding which emails to encrypt and allows your patients to conveniently receive your messages directly in their inbox—no additional passwords or portals necessary.
Also, you can use Salesforce’s Lightning Experience to send Salesforce emails directly from your regular email account. Paubox Email Suite’s Plus and Premium plan levels also come with inbound email security tools that go above and beyond to eliminate potential threats. Our patent-pending Zero Trust Email feature requires leverages email AI to create a unique identity verification to confirm that an email is authentic, while ExecProtect works quickly to catch display name spoofing attempts.