TWO-WAY TEXTING FOR HOSPITALS
FEWER READMISSIONS, CANCELLATIONS AND PHONE CALLS. THE HIPAA COMPLIANT SMS SOLUTION FOR HOSPITALS.
Dialog Health puts HIPAA compliant two-way texting at the center of every handoff, from pre-registration to post-discharge to the shift that needs filling tonight. Messages get read in minutes, patients arrive ready, and problems surface while there’s still time to fix them.
Confirmation → Pre-Registration → Reminder → Discharge Check-In → Higher HCAHPS
Catch recovery problems before they become readmissions
Keep the schedule full with reminders and prep
Turn referrals into appointments, not voicemails
Give nurses their hours back
Reach every patient in their preferred language
See who got it, clicked and replied
Trusted by leading healthcare organizations.
REACHING PATIENTS SHOULDN’T BE THE HARDEST PART OF THE DAY
Your clinicians deliver the care. The trouble starts in the gaps between visits: reminders that go to voicemail, prep instructions buried in a stack of paperwork, discharge questions nobody asks until something goes wrong. Each gap costs you a cancelled case, an avoidable readmission or an hour of staff time spent redialing. A text lands on the phone patients and staff already carry, gets read in minutes, and gives them an easy way to answer.
8 in 10 hospitals penalized for excess readmissions
$60K+ to replace a single bedside nurse
35% of patients never used a portal last year
TWO-WAY TEXTING FOR HOSPITALS, BUILT AROUND HOW CARE ACTUALLY HAPPENS
The right text, triggered automatically
Appointments, discharges and balances in your EHR trigger confirmations, prep reminders, pre-registration links and check-ins without anyone lifting a finger.
Paperwork gets done by text
Trackable short links deliver pre-registration forms, consents and payment links straight to the patient’s phone, with signatures captured and staff notified on submission.
Patients answer in plain language
“Yes,” “Y” and “Sure” all confirm. “CALL” requests a nurse. No app, no login, just the texting app already on their phone.
Every patient, in their own language
AI Translator converts outbound and inbound messages in real time, so a Spanish-speaking patient gets the same prep instructions as everyone else.
Only the exceptions reach your staff
Routine replies are handled automatically. Reschedule requests, questions and help requests route to the right department with saved responses ready to send.
See it all in real time
AnalyticsPRO shows who received each message, who clicked, who replied and who still needs a call, so your team starts with the patients who need them.
CASE STUDY
HOSPITAL
REAL RESULTS
The challenge: A large acute care organization kept losing HCAHPS points on communication, discharge clarity and responsiveness. Patients went home with unanswered questions about medications and recovery, and staff relied on outbound calls that ended in phone tag. Leadership needed a scalable fix that wouldn’t add to the load on already stretched clinical teams.
The solution: The department used Dialog Health’s two-way texting before and after discharge. Texts reinforced instructions in plain language, checked in proactively and let patients ask questions without waiting on hold, with every issue routed to the right team in real time.
11% increase in overall HCAHPS scores
73% reduction in hip & knee readmissions and penalties
67% fewer cancellations & no-shows for total joint procedures
92.4% patient satisfaction, up from 83.3%
HOSPITAL STAFF COMMUNICATION THAT REACHES EVERY PHONE IN MINUTES
Most of your workforce isn’t sitting at a desk checking email. The same platform that texts your patients reaches your nurses, techs and support staff wherever they are.
Open-shift alerts: broadcast a shift, and the first “YES” fills it.
Emergency and crisis alerts: weather, power outages, shelter-in-place, cybersecurity incidents and IT downtime.
Policy updates and acknowledgements: trackable links show who read and who signed.
Staff surveys and pulse checks: yes/no polls, ratings and satisfaction surveys.
Training, credentialing and compliance deadlines: OSHA, HIPAA and vaccination reminders.
Group-specific messaging: filter by department, location, role or language.
Proof: Southern Coos Hospital & Health Center reached 99% of employees within minutes during the December 2024 tsunami warning. At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, Lovelace Health System sent more than 46,000 messages to nearly 3,600 employees between March 15 and March 31, which its VP of Marketing called “an easy, quick, and effective way to provide support, encouragement, and guidance during a challenging time.”
ANALYTICS AND REPORTING
ANALYTICSPRO, REAL-TIME, ACTIONABLE DATA
Real-time delivery receipts and click and reply tracking show which patients confirmed, which opened their prep link and which asked for a nurse. Your team stops calling down a list and starts with the patients who need them. Leadership gets ROI reporting it can take to the board.
.png)
BUILT AND DESIGNED FOR HOSPITALS AND HEALTH SYSTEMS OF EVERY SIZE
Dialog Health’s HIPAA compliant texting scales from a single department to the whole enterprise, serving:
Hospitals & health systems: enterprise-wide patient and staff communication
Rural and community hospitals: big-system reach without big-system staffing
Surgical, perioperative and ED teams: prep, NPO, discharge and follow-up
Patient access, call centers and revenue cycle: scheduling, pre-registration and payments
HR and emergency management: staffing, alerts and surveys
Typical users include schedulers, care coordinators, pre-op and PACU nurses, case managers, call-center agents, patient financial services and HR.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is texting patients HIPAA compliant, and will you sign a BAA?
Yes, when it’s done on the right platform with the right content. Dialog Health follows HIPAA, SSAE and SOC II standards from hosting and storage through processing and transmission, and we sign a Business Associate Agreement. Ask any vendor for that BAA first. Note that “HIPAA certified” isn’t a real credential, so look for the specific standards a vendor holds.
What can and can’t we put in a text?
Apply HIPAA’s “minimum necessary” rule. A reminder can include the patient’s first name, your facility name, the date and time, prep or arrival instructions, a secure link and opt-out language. Keep diagnoses, procedure details and results behind a secure link, not in the message itself. Name the facility rather than the service line, because a department name on a lock screen can itself be a disclosure.
How do consent, opt-outs and the TCPA work?
Treatment, care-coordination and payment messages generally need only the patient’s prior express consent, which is typically given when they provide a mobile number. Marketing-style outreach needs stricter written consent. Since April 11, 2025, the FCC has required that opt-outs made by any reasonable means be honored within 10 business days. Every program includes “Reply STOP” language, and Dialog Health tracks opt-ins and opt-outs at the patient level.
Does it integrate with Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner) and MEDITECH?
Yes. The platform is integration-agnostic and supports full integrations with Epic, Cerner, MEDITECH, athenahealth, NextGen, Greenway, ModMed and others. It accepts HL7, CSV, XML and JSON via sFTP, web API or direct upload, with bidirectional data flow, so appointments, discharges and balances trigger texts automatically.
How long does implementation take, and how much IT lift is involved?
Less than most hospital IT projects. The platform is cloud-based, with no hardware to buy and no app to install. After the data feed is set up, departments build their own workflows in a no-code console using healthcare templates. A client success team that has implemented for major hospital systems guides you through go-live.
How is this different from our patient portal or the texting built into our EHR?
Portals require a login, and only about two-thirds of U.S. adults used one in 2024. A text needs nothing but the phone 98% of adults already carry. Dialog Health adds what basic EHR notifications usually lack: true two-way conversation, branching workflows, trackable links, translation, staff messaging and campaign-level analytics in one place.
Won’t two-way texting flood our staff with replies?
No. Automated flows handle the routine replies (“YES,” “Y,” “Sure”) and only the exceptions surface: a reschedule request, a question, a “CALL.” A priority inbox, routing by department and saved responses keep it manageable. Clients have cut pre- and post-op phone calls by 92% and saved 20 staff hours in a 90-day pilot.
Can we reach our own employees on the same platform?
Yes. Hospitals use Dialog Health for emergency and mass alerts, open-shift notifications, policy acknowledgements, credentialing and training reminders, open enrollment and staff surveys. You can segment by department, location, role or language. One Dialog Health hospital client reached 99% of employees within minutes during a tsunami warning.
How does texting reduce readmissions and improve HCAHPS without “gaming” the survey?
By improving what HCAHPS measures: communication, responsiveness and discharge clarity. Post-discharge check-ins let patients ask questions and request a nurse, and staff prioritize the patients who raise a hand. One client’s readmission penalty fell from 2% in FY2022 to 0% in FY2024, and another department raised HCAHPS scores by 11%.
What about patients who don’t speak English?
More than 28 million people in the U.S. have limited English proficiency. With AI Translator, staff write in English and patients receive and reply in their own language, with inbound and outbound messages translated automatically. One health network increased its response rate by 380% within 60 days of turning it on.
Do you use short codes or 10DLC, and will our texts actually be delivered?
Both, plus Tier-1 carrier connectivity, so hospital messages are delivered as registered, compliant traffic rather than filtered bulk messages. AnalyticsPRO gives you real-time delivery receipts for every message, so you can see who received it and who needs another channel.
What is RCS, and is it safe for PHI?
RCS is the upgraded version of texting: a verified sender with your logo, images and video, and one-tap buttons. It works in native messaging apps on modern Android phones and on iPhones running iOS 18 or later. Use RCS for non-PHI messages like reminders, payment links and surveys, and keep clinical content on the HIPAA compliant channel, with SMS as the automatic fallback.
How do we measure ROI?
Record your baseline before go-live: no-show and same-day cancellation rates, readmissions, phone hours and time-to-payment. Then track the same metrics in AnalyticsPRO with exportable reports and A/B comparisons. Hospitals typically build the case on protected surgical revenue, avoided readmission penalties and staff hours returned to patient care.
What does it cost, and how do we get started?
Pricing depends on your hospital’s size, departments and use cases. The fastest next step is a 15-minute, no-pressure demo where we map Dialog Health to your highest-cost communication gap, whether that’s cancellations, readmissions, HCAHPS or staff alerts.
trusted by individuals and teams at the world's best companies
