Ben Taylor, Guest Post:
Traditionally, paper faxes have been used to transmit confidential medical information including prescriptions, test results and patient histories. With the introduction of rules and regulations in the healthcare industry, such as HIPAA, organizations in the healthcare industry are now moving to fax server software. Fax server software helps to integrate this use of faxing with the more modern Electronic Medical Records (EMR) or Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems. In this blog post I shall focus on how the use of fax server software in healthcare can save organizations a significant amount of time and money.
- Traditional paper-based faxing involves a number of costly expenses including paper, ink, the fax machines themselves, phone line rental and equipment maintenance. Fax server software eliminates most of these expenses by using the IT infrastructure to handle faxing requirements.
- Paper faxing does not fit the environmentally-friendly model of modern businesses, as it generates a huge amount of unnecessary paper. Traditional faxing requires at least one printed copy of every document, both from the sender and the receiver. In addition, compliance-related requirements mean that proof of transmission and receipt often needs to be printed and filed – adding to this pile of paper. The use of fax server software allows healthcare environments to still use fax technology, but without the need for paper communication or a physical device. Instead, documents are directly sent and received from the email client. The transmission histories can also be stored electronically.
- Manual faxing brings with it a significant burden on staff resources and time. A large hospital is likely to need multiple fax machines and someone to man them at all times – passing the paper information to the relevant personnel. The need to verify transmission for privacy and compliance purposes also results in vast amounts of time spent waiting for fax transmissions to complete.
- Aside from the time required to actually send the faxes, staff producing information to be faxed would historically need to spend time printing the documents and attaching the necessary cover sheets to each one. Fax server software can automate this process completely, with good solutions allowing users to fax directly from any application with the ability to print.
- In a typical healthcare environment, each patient´s journey through the system involves communication with a number of different departments, and there is often the requirement for each of these departments to be sent the same information.
Fax server software allows information to find its way to multiple recipients with no need for duplicate copies or delays while the information is passed between departments. This can greatly enhance and accelerate internal processes.
Faxing is very much ingrained in the healthcare processes, and the use of fax server software makes this safer and more efficient, allowing organizations to dispose of outdated and costly equipment, integrate seamlessly with modern patient records systems and comply with strict laws and regulations.
(This guest post was provided by Ben Taylor on behalf of GFI Software Ltd. GFI is a leading software developer that provides a single source for network administrators to address their network security, content security and messaging needs. Read more on fax server software.)
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
