The University of Louisville School of Dentistry has adopted a new cloud-based secure text messaging system to better coordinate patient care between nearly 1,000 faculty, staff and students. Among other features, the Lua Technologies system allows clinical staff members to send secure, HIPAA-compliant text messages about patient care directly to a student’s or faculty’s personal mobile device, allowing for a quicker response.

“We are in a great period of change when it comes to technology and its impact on how we care for patients,” said John J. Sauk, D.D.S., M.S., dean of the UofL School of Dentistry. “As we educate the next generation of dental providers, it is imperative that we ensure students are using the latest tools to make patient care as seamless and supportive as possible.”

“Nearly 90 percent of health care communications are done over cellphones and tablets but only a fraction of those conversations are designed to keep the information secure,” said Michael DeFranco, founder and CEO of Lua Technologies. “It is leaders like UofL that will change the standard on how data should be provided in today’s mobile age.”

The UofL School of Dentistry educates about 600 students in general dentistry, dental hygiene and graduate programs, and requires a highly secure communications platform for faster information sharing for patient care. The school chose Lua for its secure text messaging functionality, unique desktop applications, file sharing, seamless transition between devices, interactive directories, and direct and group calling, as well as accountability across teams.

“Lua will boost efficiency of our operations, safeguard electronic patient information and streamline care coordination in a secure way. We expect our users, especially students, will immediately be drawn to the Lua solution,” said Christopher Morgan, director of Dental Informatics at University of Louisville School of Dentistry.

According to Morgan, staff previously relied on texting or consumer messaging apps to casually discuss non-confidential information with providers. However, to remain HIPAA compliant, they would need to wait for crucial person-to-person follow-ups or transfer electronic personal healthcare information (ePHI) over electronic medical record (EMR) messaging. He says the school lacked the ability to notify a student or faculty member when they were away from a clinic computer—for any message, especially an urgent message about patient care.

Lua operates within a suite of technology products used throughout the dental school clinics to speed up information sharing. In addition to secure texting, students and faculty can collaborate in-between classes or via the desktop app available on all dental clinic operatory computers. Further, the technology system will enable more rapid consultation from specialty experts to enable faster, more effective care for patients.

Lua supports dozens of health care organizations, ranging from biopharma, research and hospital systems, lab and test solutions, and educational organizations to Doctors on Demand solutions.

About the University of Louisville

The University of Louisville Health Sciences Center is the city’s only academic health center with approximately 1,000 faculty members involved in education, research and clinical care.  The UofL HSC is home to more than 650 medical and dental residents, 3,000 students pursuing degrees in health-related fields within the Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing and Public Health and Information Sciences, as well as 16 interdisciplinary centers and institutes. Approximately $140 million in expenditure enables researchers to uncover the causes of disease and better ways to prevent, treat and cure illness and injury. That research is translated into the clinical setting, where evidence-based medical care for patients is provided by UofL faculty through University of Louisville Physicians, our partnership with KentuckyOne Health, and in affiliations with other health systems and clinics throughout Kentucky and southern Indiana.

About Lua

Founded in 2010 in New York City, Lua is the mobile-first communication solution for high-performance organizations. Lua offers an intuitive and cross-platform solution that includes secure messaging, instant group calling, an interactive directory, and accountability across a team through essential ReadReports. Insights, Lua’s proprietary analytics dashboard, synthesizes communication data to provide actionable insights for managers to boost effectiveness within the organization.

Backed by investors including Abundance Partners, IA Ventures, Strauss Zelnick, Aaron Stone and John Maloney, Lua delivers powerful communication to enterprises across a range of verticals, including healthcare, logistics, hospitality, and retail. Lua also provides government-grade protection as a trusted vendor for the Department of Defense. Lua complies with a range of security and privacy regulations, including HIPAA/HITECH for healthcare organizations, FINRA for financial firms and is trusted by the federal government. For more information, please visit: https://getlua.com.

March 8, 2016