The e-commerce revolution is rapidly transforming the way companies interact with their customers. As consumers increasingly turn to the Web for product information and support, contact centers are responding by adding SMS, live chat, email and even video chat channels to their operations.

Ready or not, hospitals across the country are facing the fact that many of their clinicians are quietly using their personal smartphones to share medical information. It should be no surprise given the superior speed, reliability and convenience of cellular and Wi-Fi communication technology over land-line phone or pagers. The problem, of course, is that sharing patient data through unsecure texting could result in a serious, and costly, HIPAA breach.