We've been seeing more vendors, customers, and prospects asking about HIPAA compliant email marketing services. Since Paubox is a business associate to thousands of customers, we’ve been wondering if our customers are able to use Oracle Eloqua in a HIPAA compliant manner.
We know the HIPAA industry is vast so we can empathize with just how many people need to use cloud services in this sector. Today, we will determine if Oracle Eloqua offers HIPAA compliant email for marketing or not.
Oracle Eloqua
Oracle Eloqua is a SaaS platform for marketing automation. It aims to help B2B marketers and organizations manage marketing campaigns and sales lead generation.
What is a business associate?
A business associate is a person or company that performs certain functions or activities that involve the use or disclosure of protected health information (PHI) for a covered entity. In a nutshell, the role of a business associate is to help covered entities comply with the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
Since Oracle Eloqua is a cloud-based service that stores protected health information (PHI) on behalf of a covered entity, it is certainly considered a business associate.
Business associate agreement provisions
If a business associate provides services to a covered entity, then a business associate agreement (BAA) must be in place. A BAA is a written contract between a covered entity and a business associate and is required by law for HIPAA compliance. At a minimum, a BAA contains 10 provisions.
Oracle Eloqua and the business associate agreement
We checked Oracle's site for mention of its ability to sign a business associate agreement. We found an Oracle blog post called Oracle Announces HIPAA Attestation for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The post mentions:
"Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is categorized as a “no-view cloud service provider” and can support customers who are in scope for HIPAA by entering into a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). The BAA is required for identifying and establishing the respective responsibilities of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and the customer for appropriately safeguarding PHI in accordance with HIPAA and any amending legislation."
Does Oracle Eloqua offer HIPAA compliant service?
We were able to learn the following about Oracle and its stance on HIPAA compliance with Eloqua:
- Oracle is willing to sign a BAA for its cloud services
- We found a page in their Help Center mentioning how to setup the Oracle Eloqua HIPAA Advanced Data Security Add-on Cloud Service
- We also found a page detailing how to use Eloqua with the HIPAA add-on
To use Oracle Eloqua in a HIPAA compliant manner, recipients receive two emails for every message you send.Patients must also log into a secure message center to view your message— it does not appear in their inbox.
This creates friction and makes it less likely that your patients will read your marketing email.
Conclusion: Oracle Eloqua can be used in a HIPAA compliant manner for email marketing and automation. However, based on the available documentation, it seems like a cumbersome solution to configure and access.
HIPAA email marketing tools comparison
To meet the unmet need for HIPAA compliant email marketing, we created Paubox Marketing. It is the only solution that will:
- Sign a BAA
- Provide military-grade encryption
- Allow you to include PHI in your marketing emails
- Allow patients to read your emails directly from their inbox with no extra steps
I
n addition, Paubox Marketing is HITRUST CSF certified. Compared to the standard marketing tools, Paubox Marketing is the best option for maintaining HIPAA compliance while harnessing the power of personalized email marketing.
SEE ALSO: Why Paubox Marketing is the Best HIPAA Email Marketing Solution Available
| Company | Will they sign a BAA? | Can you send PHI? |
| Adobe Campaign | NO | NO |
| Blue Orchid Marketing | NO | NO |
| Campaign Monitor | NO | NO |
| Campaigner | NO | NO |
| Drip | NO | NO |
| Emma | NO | NO |
| GetResponse | NO | NO |
| Hubspot | NO | NO |
| L-Soft | NO | NO |
| Mad Mimi (GoDaddy) | NO | NO |
| Mailchimp | NO | NO |
| MailerLite | NO | NO |
| Marketo (Adobe) | NO | NO |
| Salesforce Pardot | NO | NO |
| SendGrid (Twilio) | NO | NO |
| Yesware | NO | NO |
| ActiveCampaign | YES | NO |
| Constant Contact | YES | NO |
| Infusionsoft by Keap | YES | NO |
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud | YES | NO |
| Eloqua (Oracle) | YES | YES ** |
| Paubox Marketing | YES | YES |
(** To use Oracle Eloqua in a HIPAA compliant manner, recipients receive two emails for every message you send. Patients must also log into a secure message center to view your message— it does not appear in their inboxes. This creates friction and makes it less likely that your patients will read your marketing email.)