Grand River Hospital opts for BlackBerry

KITCHENER-WATERLOO, Ont. – BlackBerry Limited announced that Grand River Hospital has chosen BlackBerry 10 smartphones, BBM Protected, and BES 12: a multi-OS EMM solution by BlackBerry, to enable secure communications for their clinicians and staff.

Grand River Hospital provides acute care, rehabilitation services and supportive care to more than 700,000 residents. They have a mixed mobile deployment model, with corporate-deployed BlackBerry devices for management and staff and a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) model for their physicians and remaining staff.

Grand River Hospital chose BBM Protected for enhanced security of communications among doctors and staff where messages reference private patient information. BBM Protected provides an additional layer of encryption to BBM messages, while using the familiar and reliable BBM interface used by millions of people around the world. BBM Protected works on iOS, Android, and BlackBerry smartphones.

“We needed to give our physicians and staff a secure mobile communications tool for real-time collaboration about patient status,” said Gary Higgs (pictured), Chief Information Officer of Grand River Hospital. “We considered multiple options, but BBM Protected was the ideal fit for our requirements, as it’s secure, easy to use and platform agnostic, allowing us to deploy it across the range of mobile devices in our environment.

“The BlackBerry solution, including BBM Protected and BES12, allows us to maintain the security and privacy of our patient data while empowering our users with the tools they need to provide the best possible care to our patients.”

Grand River Hospital also plans on using BES12 for enterprise mobility management (EMM) to securely manage their deployment of BlackBerry 10 smartphones, and enable access for physicians who use their own mobile devices such as iOS and Android smartphones to access the hospital network. BES12 can manage any mobile deployment model such as BYOD, Corporate Owned Personally Enabled (COPE) and Corporate Owned Business Only (COBO), and seamlessly supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone®, BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10 smartphones and tablets, as well as a wide range of Samsung KNOX and Android for Work smartphones and tablets.

“With BBM Protected and BES12, Grand River Hospital is able to provide a secure communications solution and support a mixed deployment model, including BYOD, while reducing the vulnerability of sensitive  patient data and maintaining compliance with regulations such as PHIPA,” said Mark Wilson, Chief Evangelist, BlackBerry. “BBM Protected gives staff a powerful productivity tool to communicate securely with their contacts inside and outside of the organization.”

“In addition to high-quality care, the security of personal health information is one of the most important responsibilities we must fulfill for our patients,” said Kathleen Lavoie, Grand River Hospital’s Corporate Director of Information Management and Chief Privacy Officer. “We feel BBM Protected will be a major benefit to care providers consulting each other about a patient’s needs, providing them timely information in a secure manner.”

Find out more about BBM Protected at www.BlackBerry.com/BBMProtected. Find out more about BES12 at www.BlackBerry.com/BES12.

About BlackBerry

A global leader in mobile communications, BlackBerry® revolutionized the mobile industry when it was introduced in 1999. Today, BlackBerry aims to inspire the success of our millions of customers around the world by continuously pushing the boundaries of mobile experiences. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, BlackBerry operates offices in North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America. The Company trades under the ticker symbols “BB” on the Toronto Stock Exchange and “BBRY” on the NASDAQ. For more information, visit www.BlackBerry.com.