Healthcare teams walk a fine line every day: deliver great patient care while keeping data secure, staying HIPAA-compliant, and avoiding workflow headaches.
At Celo, we’ve seen how leading organizations use secure messaging to simplify operations and improve outcomes.
A Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is not optional. It’s the law. It ensures any third party handling protected health information (PHI) follows HIPAA standards.
Without one, organizations risk fines, breaches, and lost trust.
Celo offers two approaches:
The organizational BAA matters because it gives leaders the visibility and control they need to manage PHI securely, not just for individuals but across their entire workforce.
A Celo Workspace serves as the digital hub for team communication. Through the Admin Panel, managers can invite or remove users, assign roles, and monitor activity.
This ensures every staff member operates under the same compliance umbrella.
Utilizing the Departments feature makes life easier for larger or distributed teams. By organizing staff by region, specialty, or role, communication flows more naturally and securely.
The result is a structure that combines operational efficiency with regulatory compliance.
Scattered group chats are a compliance nightmare. Patient Cases solve this by keeping communication structured, secure, and patient-specific.
Key benefits include:
For organizations on premium plans, External Chat makes it possible to securely bring patients or their families into the conversation via SMS.
No app download is needed; just a secure browser link. This balances security with accessibility, giving patients peace of mind while keeping compliance intact.
Staff turnover is a reality in healthcare. Without planning, it leads to lost access and disrupted care. Assigning admins to groups and Patient Cases ensures continuity:
To avoid bottlenecks, more than one admin should always be assigned per group or case.
Healthcare relies heavily on images and documents, but storing them on personal devices is a major risk. The Celo Secure Library ensures media is captured and stored securely inside the app.
It never appears in personal photo galleries, and every file is encrypted, tied to a patient case, and fully auditable.
Whether capturing wound photos or sharing consent forms, clinicians can trust that PHI stays secure and separate from personal data.
Accountability is built into Celo. Every message shows when it was sent, delivered, and read. This makes it clear whether urgent updates have been seen and allows for timely follow-up.
The audit trail extends to the Secure Library as well. Every photo or document is linked to the uploader and patient case, giving full visibility into who shared what and when.
For organizations, this traceability provides peace of mind and strengthens compliance.
Healthcare never stops, but people need a break sometimes. The Do Not Disturb (DnD) feature helps clinicians reclaim their personal time.
It can be toggled on manually or scheduled with a timer, silencing notifications during off-hours, meetings, or breaks.
By removing the need to hand out personal phone numbers, Do Not Disturb protects boundaries while maintaining professional communication. It’s a small feature that makes a big difference in staff well-being.
When communication tools fail, the consequences in healthcare can be serious. That’s why Celo Support is fast and personal:
Our goal is to act not just as a technology provider but as a partner in care.
Celo's features go beyond compliance checklists. They enable safer, faster, and more effective care.
With BAAs, Workspaces, Patient Cases, the Secure Library, Do Not Disturb, and responsive support, healthcare organizations can reduce compliance risk, improve patient safety, streamline workflows, and support staff retention.
At the heart of it all is a simple goal: to free healthcare professionals to focus on patients rather than technology.
Celo is trusted by care teams worldwide, from hospitals to community health providers. If your organization is ready to strengthen HIPAA compliance, simplify communication, and protect both patients and staff, book a demo and see how Celo can transform your workflows.
For a real-life look at these features in action, including scenarios from everyday healthcare workflows, you can watch the full webinar recording here.
Or, book a demo.
About the Author:
Chief Growth Officer at Celo
As the Chief Growth Officer at Celo, Jack is dedicated to driving the adoption of secure, HIPAA-compliant communication solutions tailored to the unique requirements in the healthcare sector. Jack is passionate about protecting individual's privacy and making sure that they are fully informed about how their healthcare providers are handling their sensitive information.