Vivent Health

For 35 years, Wisconsin-based nonprofit Vivent Health has served people living with HIV or who are at high risk of contracting HIV. Vivent provides medical, dental, and behavioral health care as well as pharmacy and social services including case management, food security, and housing assistance. 

Using a medical home model, Vivent provides coordinated care for 12,000 individuals each year across four states.

Vivent also has an HIV prevention arm, which includes a syringe exchange program and a Narcan training program designed to prevent opioid overdoses. The syringe exchange program has provided 5 million clean needles and has saved an estimated 4,000 lives from opioid overdose. The organization’s 500 employees deal with protected health information (PHI) on a daily basis.

Challenge

Before discovering Paubox, Vivent used another email encryption solution to send HIPAA compliant email and protect PHI. However, the product did not meet the organization’s needs. It required several extra steps, such as clicking an icon in the email program or including a specific word in the email’s subject line, in order to encrypt an email. 

With the previous solution, the sender had to determine whether or not encryption was necessary for each email, slowing down the organization’s work and reducing productivity. Vivent sought to remove that decision point, so that the organization could concentrate on communicating instead.

Furthermore, having to consciously decide whether or not to encrypt an email led to the opportunity for user error. “It would be so easy for someone to forget to click that button or include that modifier in order to encrypt those emails. But we don’t worry or even think about that anymore, because it’s all encrypted with Paubox,” explained Dan Sajdowitz, Vivent’s IT manager.

The organization also had to deal with problems from email recipients, who often could not figure out how to open a secure email or were reluctant to create an account to access the email’s contents.

Solution

Recently, Vivent merged with a Texas-based nonprofit organization serving the HIV-positive community. This group was already a Paubox customer, and Vivent was eager to learn more about Paubox Email Suite. After the merger, Vivent implemented Paubox Email Suite enterprise-wide to all 500 employees.

“Email is our major source of communication with the outside world, and Paubox speeds up that communication,” explained Tim Dyer, chief financial officer at Vivent. “Being assured that every email is being encrypted without any intervention by the sender or our IT department makes it that much easier. There is no slowdown on either end.”

Vivent benefits from Paubox Email Suite’s always-on, zero-step encryption. With Paubox, users don’t have to think about email security – it happens automatically, behind the scenes. Paubox Email Suite is HITRUST certified, which is the healthcare industry’s gold standard of security.

Vivent had a great experience with Paubox’s implementation process. “The implementation process was the quickest, most seamless, and simplest thing we’ve ever done as an organization with regard to IT. It was very painless, very easy,” Sajdowitz said. 

Paubox’s seamless user experience is a huge win for Vivent Health as well. “The recipients’ experience is where Paubox really shines,” Sajdowitz pointed out. “While other solutions require seven interactions per email in order to read a message, Paubox requires 1: just open the email.”

Results

Since April 2020, Paubox has encrypted nearly 125,000 emails on behalf of Vivent’s 500 employees.

Using Paubox Email Suite has reduced the time and complexity involved in managing Vivent’s email encryption. The previous solution required time to troubleshoot and handle issues email recipients were facing. By streamlining the process of sending encrypted emails, the Vivent team saves time with every email they send. With 500 employees across 13 locations, those seconds saved quickly add up.

Paubox saves money for Vivent as well. Using Paubox has allowed Vivent’s IT department to eliminate one entire server, getting rid of all of the associated costs and resources that had been dedicated to managing and securing it.

For Vivent Health, Paubox Email Suite checks all the boxes. “It’s a solid product, the price point is good, it’s easy to use, and it gives us added security and comfort,” said Dyer. “It’s rare to find a solution that is all of those things.”