Patient data, treated like patient data
A clinical system earns trust by being boring about security. Here is what Pulsonics does, in plain terms.
Encrypted on the device
Each organisation gets its own encryption key when it is set up, held by that organisation alone — not by us. Sensitive data is encrypted on the device before it is sent, and the connection itself is additionally protected with TLS. That matters most in a shared clinical environment, where a phone gets handed between shifts.
Access follows the role
Permissions are granted by role, department and ward. A nurse on one ward sees what that role needs, not the whole hospital.
Every access is logged
Each patient carries an audit trail — records viewed, documents created, messages sent — named to the individual user with a timestamp.
VIP identity protection
For patients whose presence in the hospital is itself sensitive, the record can be shielded from casual browsing while the clinical team keeps working.
Password for relatives
A dedicated credential for a nominated family member, so information reaches the right person and not the waiting room.
Our servers, your cloud or on premises
On our servers in Germany, in a cloud of your choice — Google, Microsoft, AWS or another provider — or on premises in your own data centre.
No patient record on the phone
No persistent patient record is stored on the handset, so a lost, stolen or shared phone does not carry patient data off the ward.
German engineering, GDPR
Pulsonics GmbH operates under the GDPR; deployments are additionally configured and contracted to meet applicable local requirements.
What IT and data protection officers ask
Where is the data hosted?
Pulsonics can run on our servers in Germany, in a cloud of your choice (Google, Microsoft, AWS or another provider), or on premises in your own data centre — whichever your regulator or ministry requires. We are happy to go through the specific arrangement, sub-processors and the data processing agreement with your data protection officer before you commit to anything.
Who processes the data — you or us?
That depends on where Pulsonics runs; your organisation is always the controller for its patient data. If we host it, on our servers in Germany, we act as your processor under a data processing agreement — and because the data is encrypted with a key only your organisation holds, we cannot read it. If Pulsonics runs in a cloud of your choice, with a local IT provider or on premises, the data stays there: we supply the software and have no access to patient data.
What does the AI analysis send, and to whom?
Only what your organisation sets up. Pulsonics provides an interface: an organisation can connect a language model of its choice by URL, and the app then sends it the patient's clinical documentation — without name, address, location in the hospital or other identifiers — for analysis or other processing. Which model that is, who operates it and under what contract is your organisation's decision — we do not provide or operate the model. Pulsonics itself draws no clinical conclusions and does not provide medical advice.
What happens when the internet goes down?
Documentation pauses until the connection is back. Pulsonics has no offline mode, and that is a deliberate choice: an EMR that lets devices drift apart and merge later is an EMR where two clinicians can act on two different versions of the same patient. We would rather interrupt the typing than risk the record.
It does mean connectivity is a real requirement rather than a nice to have — worth checking honestly before you commit.
The phones are shared between staff. Is that safe?
It is the case we designed for. Sensitive data is encrypted on the device before it is sent, no persistent patient record stays on the handset, each user signs in individually, and the audit trail records actions against the person rather than the handset — so a shared phone does not become an anonymous one. For clinical use we recommend managed hospital devices; staff's own compatible phones work too.
Who can see a given patient's record?
Access is granted by role, department and ward, assigned when users are set up and changed as people move. Sensitive cases can be given VIP identity protection. Every access is recorded in that patient's audit log.
Can we use our own diagnosis and medication catalogues?
Yes. ICD-10 and ICD-11 are both available, in every language Pulsonics supports, and each organisation chooses which one it codes in. You can use the standard diagnosis, infection and procedure lists, upload your own, or combine both. The same applies to the medication database, and you can decide whether users may add medications themselves.
Do you support our language?
Pulsonics fully supports English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Turkish, Arabic, Russian and Kazakh today. Arabic is a right-to-left language and Pulsonics treats it as one: navigation, forms, lists, tables and charts mirror — the vitals chart included, with its value axis running from the right — rather than translated text sitting inside a left-to-right layout. Users in the same organisation can each work in a different language: every structured documentation item — diagnoses, symptoms, allergies, risk flags and the like — carries its translations, so when someone switches the app to another language, those items follow. Free-text notes stay in the language they were written in. If you need another language, tell us.
Bring your data protection officer
We would rather answer the hard questions early than discover them during a rollout.