Telephone faxing is clearly no longer an efficient and modern way to share data and documents between two end points.
While healthcare can’t seem to get away from faxing, it is not the fax, itself, that is the problem. The inability to adopt and implement modern faxing is the real problem.
It’s curious that we see email as a solution to sending documents, because it is faster and more efficient than ‘snail-mail’. DirectMessage, for example, is essentially email for healthcare, as a way to securely send documents. If the healthcare industry is eager to adopt email or DirectMessage as a way to quickly and securely send documents, then why is healthcare hanging on to the relic of telephony based fax?
CMS Administrator, Seema Verma, missed the mark when she aimed to “make every doctor’s office in America a fax free zone by 2020”. It is the wrong goal, because the perception is wrong.
Instead, we should aim to make doctors’ offices a ‘telephony fax machine free zone’, and it should be done immediately. We should not try to eliminate faxing any more than we should try to eliminate phone calls. Communication is essential to patient care, and document exchange is essential to patient care.
Let’s eliminate telephony fax machines, and the issues that come with two modems hissing at each other.
Let’s eliminate the idea that a fax is a curly piece of paper that is blurred, smudged, goes missing, never comes through, etc. Let’s embrace modern cloud faxing, secure document delivery networks, and integrated exchange solutions that improve collaboration and interoperability in a way that seamlessly integrates into automated workflows.
Take for example a fax solution such as etherFAX’s DirectFax Microsoft Teams integration. DirectFax creates a network to meet healthcare care teams where they are: faxing as a primary means of securely delivering documents, and Teams as a trusted means of collaboration. The problem with faxing in healthcare is not in the document exchange, the problem is that the wrong technology is being used.
By creating the DirectFax Teams integration, utilizing the Secure Exchange Network (SEN), etherFAX eliminates the need for faxing, in the historical and traditional sense of the word. Now, every team across every department can seamlessly and securely exchange documents, in near real-time, in Microsoft Teams, without two modems hissing at each other and without any need for paper!
Or, consider etherFAX’s DirectFax Epic App Orchard solution that allows users to send patient healthcare records directly from Epic Print Services (EPS). Documents are delivered digitally in high-resolution, full color directly to the recipients within seconds.
Through the integration, Epic users can leverage etherFAX SEN to securely transport critical healthcare and business information via EPS without having to change a single workflow. This allows healthcare organizations to exchange protected health information (PHI) with ultra-fast transmission speeds, and guaranteed delivery. For guaranteed security and data protection, etherFAX is HITRUST CSF certified as well as PCI DSS and SOC 2 compliant.
Yes, CMS, please help healthcare ditch the fax ‘machine’. In the same way we no longer make phone calls through a switch board operator, or send letters via carrier pigeon, let’s get to the point where we no longer exchange documents with two modems hissing at each other.
Let’s adopt modern faxing, which has transformed what it means to send a fax. Let’s adopt digital exchange networks that securely deliver documents in near real-time, allowing for data extraction and workflow automation.
