Case Study: Ringgold County Hospital achieves enhanced patient safety and HIPAA-compliant secure messaging with Backline by DrFirst

Critical Access Hospital Uses Secure Messaging to Enhance Patient Safety

Ringgold County Hospital, a 16‑bed critical access hospital in Mt. Ayr, Iowa, faced growing risk from clinicians using personal text messaging to share patient information—raising HIPAA compliance concerns, potential PHI exposure, and gaps in the medical record. Seeking an affordable, easy-to-implement solution that integrated with its McKesson Paragon HIS, Ringgold selected Backline by DrFirst’s secure messaging platform to enable compliant, image-capable clinician communication.

Backline by DrFirst was deployed organization-wide to provide patient-centered and group chats, time-stamped messages that can be added to the medical record, and interfaces for lab result alerts and order routing. The platform improved care coordination—pharmacists notify physicians via Backline so the right antibiotic is given sooner—enabled secure image sharing that prevented repeat x‑rays, preserved searchable audit trails for HIPAA compliance, and sped treatment across departments.

Ringgold County Hospital

Carrie Main

Director of Health Information Systems