Project Harmony

For nearly 25 years, Project Harmony has been committed to one goal: ending the cycle of child abuse and neglect. The nonprofit organization is a child advocacy center serving the Omaha, Nebraska metro area, southwest Iowa and a satellite location in Fremont, NE, through early intervention and response services. Its mission is to protect and support children, collaborate with professionals, and engage the community to end child abuse and neglect. Project Harmony is deeply involved in the community it serves.

Challenge

Project Harmony is always looking to improve the employee experience without sacrificing the security of sensitive information.  The organization must comply with HIPAA to safeguard protected health information (PHI). Before Paubox, it had been using another email encryption solution to help achieve that goal. However, the solution presented significant barriers.

The solution the company previously used “provided a cumbersome user experience, particularly for the recipients of email coming from Project Harmony,” said Dan Allen, Project Harmony’s director of IT. “We continually received complaints from our partners about how difficult it was to access the encrypted information.”

The email recipient experience was a key driver of Project Harmony’s decision to change. Its previous solution was 100% portal-based, requiring recipients to use one-time passcodes or set up password-protected accounts. Project Harmony needed something better.

Solution

Project Harmony’s IT staff began researching other options that might fit the organization’s criteria. At a minimum, the solution needed to be HIPAA compliant. “We need to abide by HIPAA, which requires combining a compliant tool with effective processes,” Allen said. Equally important, the solution needed to have an easy recipient experience that was streamlined and simple.

“We compared a number of options with similar features. But once we got into Paubox, understanding the mechanics and the user experience, we made the decision to choose Paubox Email Suite for those employees that routinely need to send information that we need to or should encrypt.” Allen explained.

Paubox Email Suite offers always-on, zero-step, 100% encryption. Customers don’t have to think about email security – it happens automatically, behind the scenes. Email recipients don’t have to do anything different – no portals, no account passwords. They simply open the email. Paubox Email Suite is HITRUST CSF certified, meeting the gold standard of security for PHI.

The setup process was easy. With the onboarding instructions the Paubox team provided, Project Harmony did much of the configuration on its own. “We were up and running within a week,” noted Allen.

“The user experience and easy integration are two key things I would highlight for anyone looking for a secure email solution. Paubox offers a great user experience for both senders and recipients, and it works as advertised,” Allen said.

Results

Removing the cumbersome user experience for Project Harmony’s email recipients has paid dividends for the organization’s relationships with partners. “The improved sender-recipient experience will positively benefit the timely communication process that is required by the organizations and individuals who help us deliver on our mission,” Allen remarked.

Paubox Email Suite has secured over 1,000 emails a month from Project Harmony’s team. “The best feedback is just getting a reply to the email versus getting a reply plus a complaint. That is the best compliment that we could get,” said Allen. 

The lack of complaints from email recipients translates to very happy Project Harmony staff who no longer have to deal with frustrated partners.

As Allen explained, “Paubox is a solution that just works – it lets our people do what they need to do. That is a big, realized benefit of implementing Paubox.”