The coronavirus pandemic has shed a spotlight on the lack of interoperability within the healthcare industry and the fragility of traditional telephony infrastructure. With more than two million COVID-19 cases in the United States, hospitals have been overwhelmed with the increase in protected health information (PHI) being exchanged, documented, and managed. Busy signals and slow transmissions associated with limited PSTN-based fax numbers and legacy systems have prevented patient records, test results, prescriptions, and insurance information from being processed fast and efficiently. Unfortunately, any delay in the exchange of PHI could lead to fatal consequences.
Now more than ever, telehealth has become vital to deliver quality patient care, accelerate communications, and improve business processes. Virtual appointments via Microsoft Teams and Zoom have allowed doctors to safely evaluate patients in the comfort of their own homes while mobile applications have enabled nurses and medical staff to exchange patient information instantly and deliver test results directly to patients.
To digitize workflows and fuel healthcare innovation, etherFAX allows organizations to securely send and receive high-resolution documents and health-critical data from today’s popular fax servers as well as third-party messaging platforms including Slack, Teams, Microsoft Fax, and mobile applications. Leveraging the etherFAX Secure Exchange Network (SEN), organizations can send and receive faxes and PHI documents on Android and iOS care coordination mobile apps with near-diagnostic image quality.
etherFAX SEN is the world’s largest fax network, leveraging hybrid cloud technology to provide 100 percent secure communications. DirectFax via etherFAX SEN enables organizations to transmit PHI directly to applications and devices with ultra-fast transmission speeds, guaranteed delivery, and end-to-end encryption. For guaranteed data protection, etherFAX is HITRUST CSF certified and PCI DSS Level 1 compliant.
By leveraging the security of fax technology with the scalability of the cloud, healthcare organizations can utilize etherFAX DirectFax to deliver high-resolution, full color documents within seconds. With the ability to exchange test results, X-rays, and CT scans with superior color and clarity via applications and mobile devices, doctors can provide medical diagnoses faster than ever before.
While the pandemic has forced many healthcare organizations to implement telehealth services for the first time, virtual care coordination via mobile applications is here to stay. According to a report from McKinsey, 74 percent of telehealth users reported high satisfaction and indicated they were either highly likely or moderately likely to use telehealth moving forward.
According to Ricoh Research, 74% of hospitals that use mobile devices to collect healthcare data are more efficient than those who don’t.
Interested in learning more? Let’s chat!