Since July, Paubox Email Suite has encrypted nearly 150,000 emails from Easterseals Louisiana’s 200 employees.
A Louisiana-based nonprofit organization founded nearly 70 years ago, Easterseals Louisiana’s mission is to assist individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities achieve independence, helping participants live their best lives. Its broad-based social services include early intervention, support for older adults, mental health and substance abuse services, support for participants with mental and intellectual disabilities, reentry services, and peer support services.
Easterseals Louisiana’s goal is to maintain its participants’ independence in the community where they live, work, and play. The organization has seven locations across the state and has almost 200 employees. It serves a constantly growing group of participants – more than 10,000 in 2019 alone.
|
Company snapshot
|
- Founded in 1951
- Number of locations: 7
- Paubox client since 2020
|
|
Industry
|
|
|
Use case
|
Protect participants’ PHI with an easy-to-use, HIPAA compliant secure email solution
|
|
Goals
|
- Make sure email encryption is easy to use, particularly for email recipients
- Encrypt emails automatically, with no extra steps
- Eliminate the potential for human error, mistakes, or inconsistencies in encrypting PHI
- Find a seamless, simple, effective solution for secure email
|
|
Used solution
|
|
|
Favorite features
|
- Compatibility with other email platforms
- Seamlessness and ease of use
- Simple onboarding process
|
Challenge
Maintaining HIPAA compliance has always been one of the organization’s biggest concerns. At times, Easterseals Louisiana needs to share protected health information (PHI) with the participants it serves as well as with Louisiana state offices.
“HIPAA compliance is not a simple task, and it can be overwhelming,” said Dawn Kendall, vice president of programs and services for Easterseals Louisiana. “We are really excited to have Paubox now because we don’t have to think about it anymore.”
When COVID-19 hit, making remote work more common across the organization, email began to play a larger role in the transmission of PHI. As a result, Easterseals Louisiana looked to find the best HIPAA compliant email solution. Easterseals Louisiana tried several other email encryption products, but none of them met its needs.
Other solutions, like Virtru, required extra steps, and employees needed a lot of training to learn to use the tools correctly and consistently. Additionally, the organization would get complaints from email recipients – including funders and other important stakeholders – that the email was difficult to open and access.
“We got a lot of pushback from email recipients using our previous encryption solution,” explained Kendall. “Funders were asking us to resend things constantly because they weren’t able to open it. Since we started using Paubox, we have not heard anything. It is amazing the difference in what we’re experiencing with Paubox. We’re very pleased.”
“We needed something that was seamless and was compatible with most email platforms,” noted Chris Hall, director of quality enhancement and training for Easterseals Louisiana. “Paubox is solving a lot of the problems that we were having.”
Solution
As Easterseals Louisiana continued to research secure email solutions online, the team discovered Paubox Email Suite: easy-to-use, always-on email encryption that eliminated the potential for human error by encrypting every email automatically. Paubox Email Suite is HITRUST CSF certified, the gold standard of email security.
The implementation process was quick and easy. Within two weeks, Easterseals Louisiana was up and running with Paubox Email Suite. The staff didn’t need any training. “I wouldn’t have imagined that it would be that easy to implement something that protects our entire agency,” Hall said.
The team chose Paubox Email Suite because it provides automatic email encryption that gives the organization peace of mind. “The security is invaluable,” Hall noted. “Additionally, the simplicity of Paubox is a big highlight.”
Results
Since July, Paubox Email Suite has encrypted nearly 150,000 emails from Easterseals Louisiana’s 200 employees. Reducing the risk of a HIPAA violation is a major win. “We’ve never had any HIPAA compliance issues, but Paubox keeps us protected from potential email breaches. That risk reduction is priceless,” said Kendall.
Paubox also saves the organization time because no one has to think about encryption: both in terms of day-to-day work and in terms of ongoing training. Best of all, the complaints from funders and state agencies about difficulties opening secure emails have stopped.
In sum, Paubox helps Easterseals Louisiana focus on what’s most important: advancing its mission and serving people across Louisiana. “We are no longer doing all those extra steps, messing around with passwords, sending separate emails, going back and forth. It’s great protection for any organization, whether or not you have had a breach in the past. It works very well, and we’re excited for the product,” Hall commented.
