Last week, security researcher, Jonathan Leithscuh publicly disclosed a HUGE security flaw in Zoom video meeting platform. The flaw lets a hacker force you to join a call—webcam and all without your knowledge. It also leaves open the possibility of malicious ads and phishing attacks. Worst of all, the security flaw persists even if you completely uninstall Zoom.
One million reader media influencer John Gruber wrote on his Daring Fireball tech blog
If you ever installed Zoom, I’d go through the steps to eradicate it and never install it again.
Is this acceptable for you or your patients’ privacy?
Zoom A Video Conference Success Story
I have talked with Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan a number of times over the years, and he is a person I truly admire. He began Zoom in 2011 in a super competitive video conference space with little funding and lots of naysayers. Yet he has succeeded where others have not (like the sad exit of Vidyo). He has created a great product that resonates with users in various spaces and has made Zoom a $20B success story. His startup and life’s journey are an inspiration and role model for me, and I am grateful that there are people like him who have accomplished so much and are still so real and compassionate.
True to Zoom’s customer first approach, it has promised to fix their security problem, however, I still strongly urge healthcare users to consider VSee. After all Zoom is designed to be a general video meeting tool, unlike VSee which has been completely focused on healthcare for many years.
Why VSee vs. Zoom for Healthcare?
The advantage focusing only on healthcare is that we can make every VSee design and feature decision with the healthcare provider and patient mind — What will make the online clinical workflow easier and more efficient? What kind of AI integrations can help providers with clinical decisions and patient engagement? It also means we can make security and patient privacy at the heart of every architecture decision we make.
We’ve written before about some of the differences between VSee’s telehealth platform vs. Zoom’s meeting platform. But here’s a quick run down of…
5 Reasons Providers Prefer VSee for Telehealth
1. No security flaw. VSee doesn’t have a major security flaw where you could ruin a patient’s life and destroy your professional reputation.
2. Let’s you scale fast. VSee is DESIGNED for efficient healthcare workflows. Some telehealth platforms have great waiting room workflows. Some telehealth platforms have great scheduling or EMR integration. Some telehealth platforms have excellent video. Some telehealth platforms have medical device integration. However, the VSee platform integrates all of these elements, where we have created workflows from NICU to palliative care via a single flexible platform that’s ready to go with all the features that you need in the future.
3. Amazing video (now for groups, too!) One of the big complaints from people looking for an alternative to their telehealth platform is unreliable, poor video quality. In the past, VSee has done a poor job on large group calls vs. Zoom. Not anymore!
We just released a complete rewrite of our video core this month and now VSee group video is now just as good as Zoom’s. As for those on crowded hotspots and sketchy wifi, we’ve added phone integration so they can join by audio. Just sign up to try our promotion and you will be upgraded to the new group video service.
4. Simplicity. VSee is simple to use. It’s one of the reasons we were chosen to be the video tool for Astronauts on the International Space Station. One of our customers Onsite for Seniors provides woundcare to SNFs and other members. They love VSee because it lets them teach these nurses how to use VSee during their break time—about 15 min!
5. Competitive pricing. Zoom for healthcare is not a cheap alternative starting at $200/month. VSee provides a range of options for our users—You can start simple with our self-service Free VSee Clinic. Move up to our full-featured VSee Clinic for multi-specialty or multi-clinic health systems and organizations. Or hire us to completely build and host your custom telehealth portal for your specific workflow. All VSee Clinic options include a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) for compliance with HIPAA federal law.
6. New group video & phone bridge. In case you missed it under “Amazing video”, VSee just launched our new high quality group video calling and phone bridge integration for our VSee Messenger app. If you are feeling the Zoom security pain, we invite you to give VSee a try. We have a special $7.49 per month promotion—half of Zoom’s subscription (for users who don’t need a BAA).
