Vital Stats
Relevant Product Characteristics
- This product does not appear to have been designed specifically with healthcare in mind. Note that many products that are useful and appropriate for health care professionals are not designed specifically with health care in mind.
What Is This Product?
ProtonMail is a high-privacy secure messaging platform with both webmail and mobile apps. They also offer a BAA even with their FREE tier of service. This is rare, folks.
It’s Hosted in Switzerland. Is that okay for HIPAA?
For a long time, we weren’t sure about that. Luckily, HHS has been on a guidance-writing streak throughout 2016 and they dispelled this nasty rumor. Hosting information outside the US is fine so long as there is a BAA in place (citation). We also need to take the locale into account in our risk analyses. At the time of writing, we are not aware of any political unrest or problems of note in Switzerland that would impact the security of ProtonMail’s servers.
Downsides That Aren’t Caveats
Caveats are criticisms of the company or warnings about the product. None of these downsides meet those criteria, so we’re just calling them “downsides.”
- ProtonMail doesn’t offer an easy way for someone to initiate a secure message to you – of course they could still send a normal e-mail. In order for a client to send you a secure message through ProtonMail, they must either:
- Have their own ProtonMail account
- Find a ProtonMail message you sent to them that hasn’t already expired and then reply to it.
Okay, there was only 1 downside. That’s a good thing!
This product offers a free service tier or a free trial account:
We encourage all clinicians interested in this product to try out the free trial or experiment with the free tier to see if it suits your needs.
If you discover anything of concern that isn’t addressed in this review yet, please tell Liath about it at [email protected].
- Click here for the free trial or free service tier information→. Important note about Business Associate Agreements: This product offers a Business Associate Agreement with the free trial or free service tier. Be sure to get your BAA from the company before using client information while you test the product.
Caveats
Caveats are criticsms of the company or product that we feel are relevant to your risk management or other important considerations.
None
Notes
Notes cover points where the product can’t ensure compliance or ethical action for you. These help you know what your part of the compliance puzzle looks like when using this product. A high note count usually correlates with a feature-rich product, and not necessarily with a product that has problems.
None