If you are working from home at this time like me, you are looking around taking stock of what you have. We are all looking in the cupboards to see what is on hand and what we can make of what we have with small additions as we limit our grocery trips.  In times of crisis, we need to make the best use of our existing assets and decide carefully where we make our next investments.

Direct Secure Messaging is an important asset to enable the communication and exchange of critical health data and the great majority of provider organizations already have it on the shelf.

I know many of you are actively engaged in extending these capabilities as needed to facilities in the community that are a part of responding to this crisis – sending health records ahead of time on patients that are referred to hospitals that are treating the critically ill and communicating health status to public health authorities and back to primary care providers.

Some of you are providing Direct Addresses to patients allowing them to communicate directly with providers that support such communications, enabling active monitoring of patients in their homes as they quarantine.

These connections and capabilities are already in place, but healthcare organizations are benefiting from the assistance you are providing as they make new connections taking advantage of these assets in this new essential context.

In this unprecedented situation, DirectTrust and our community of operators and implementers stand with healthcare professionals as they battle this virus, ready to help enable communication of health data that is critical to decision-making and effective care.  

We invite you, our community to share the work you are doing to assist your clients in this crisis. Likewise, we invite comments on what DirectTrust can do to better coordinate our collective response.  Our Workgroups will address these comments and we will make adjustment to our policies and services as our community sees fit.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for all that each of you do to serve the healthcare professionals that are on the front lines of this battle.

– Scott Stuewe and the DirectTrust Team