Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, instant access to patient information has been crucial for healthcare departments worldwide. To support this exchange, many healthcare networks have used new technologies.
However, even amongst new systems for information sharing, another technology remains vital to the world’s current response to the coronavirus pandemic – cloud faxing.
According to Vox, more than three-quarters of medical communication in the United States happens through faxing. Although the federal government has taken initiatives to limit paper-based fax to improve interoperability, faxing capabilities are still important for sharing health data during COVID-19.
Cloud Fax is a key enabler of fast information exchange in healthcare systems. It caters to countless healthcare networks that still use faxing systems for communication. In this article, we highlight the top 7 benefits of healthcare cloud faxing automation in a post-pandemic world.
What Is Cloud Faxing?
Cloud Fax is a technology that allows machines to send and receive faxes using a cloud fax service. It empowers healthcare providers to handle internal workflow more effectively and increase productivity.
In the post-pandemic world, maintaining remote communication has become more important than ever. As cloud faxing enables healthcare networks to share information while maintaining social distancing, it is a reliable communication tool for healthcare providers during COVID-19.
Although the healthcare industry has used HIPAA-compliant online faxing many times before, cloud faxing has made this technology more viable for remote users. Aside from healthcare, technology is used in many essential industries to ensure their operation during a crisis.
While most healthcare systems have adopted EHR in some way or another, many underdeveloped areas still lack digital infrastructure. This makes cloud faxing especially important for ensuring safe, secure, and reliable data exchange in those areas. In other words, technology is critical for ensuring interoperability between these distant healthcare systems.
7 Benefits of Healthcare Cloud Faxing Automation during COVID-19
Cutting Operational Costs and Improving Efficiency
Research suggests that health systems lose as much as $9.4 billion annually by relying on manual processes instead of electronic systems such as cloud faxing.
This means conducting resource-intensive manual transactions costs for both healthcare providers and U.S. health plans, on average, $6 more than when conducted electronically.
Each transaction costs $11 per transaction and since millions of transactions are exchanged each day, the cost adds up quickly. By adopting cloud faxing or any other electronic system completely, these networks can reduce their costs and save at least 1.1 million labor hours every week.
Automating Communication Exchange
Automating mundane tasks and implementing secure, safe, and reliable exchange of health information is necessary for healthcare providers. Providing end-to-end coverage from issuing tests to lab reporting to delivering results to primary care teams can be performed seamlessly with the help of cloud fax.
When used in line with electronic health record (EHR) systems, cloud faxing features can automate EHR updates, patient referrals, as well as, free up resources for more critical work, helping health workers spend more time with patients instead of wasting time processing documents.
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Improving Accuracy and Reducing Workload
As paper-based systems are becoming obsolete in the health industry, electronic fax technology is replacing it. Continuing with cloud fax services reduces the chances of human errors that are inherent in paper faxes.
This is why cloud faxing systems provide greater accuracy and minimizes labor spent on understanding hand-written orders. Whether you are processing a spending request for approval or a prescription for a drug order in a pharmacy, electronic orders streamline the entire process.
Flat Learning Curve
Another striking quality of cloud faxes is that their implementation doesn’t need extensive technical training. Since it uses an intuitive and easy-to-use system, implementation is fast and efficient. Compared to other more complex technologies, the system causes less disruption in normal operations, helping medical staff to stick to their jobs.
Eco-Friendly, Budget-Conscious Document Management: Cloud-Faxing Tools
Paper faxes take up huge amounts of storage space and incur additional on health systems due to their lack of efficiency. Additionally, they are vulnerable to physical damage, putting them at risk of more dangers than electronic records.
With so many risks at hand, it makes sense to switch to a digital record system. Digital cloud fax records are easy to process, secure, and less susceptible to damage compared to paper records. Cloud faxes allow medical facilities to reduce paper waste and exercise social responsibility in a safer environment.
100% HIPAA Compliance
The HIPAA Privacy Rule is an internationally recognized standard for protecting medical records and all forms of personal health information. The standard applies to a variety of health care clearinghouses, health plans, and health care services, enabling services to carry out health care transactions electronically.
Violating the HIPAA standard can result in heavy fines. Depending on the level of negligence, the scale of the violation, and the number of patients affected, your health system can collect a fine from $100 to as high as $50,000. To prevent your network from falling victim to this, you must ensure compliance with HIPAA regulations.
Cloud faxing is carried over direct phone lines between two facilities, making it considerably more secure than emails. While it’s important to ensure the timely delivery of information in time, ensuring the safety of medical records is just as important. The technology helps health systems overcome security challenges without spending additional resources for security.
Facilitates Archiving and Reporting of Patient Health Records
Digital records are significantly easier to access, which makes them ideal for report generation. These reports can help improve patient services, assist in research activities, and perform a financial review.
Cloud faxing eliminates the need for creating unsustainable paper record systems and helps health networks store data digitally. At the same time, smarter reporting capabilities introduced by cloud faxing helps health systems identify bottlenecks in their workflow and enhance their output in a time of crisis.
In the age of COVID-19, ensuring seamless interoperability between different health networks can ensure the immediate availability of information for primary care providers. Cloud faxing cuts the complexity of advanced systems and gives health networks a friction-less system for exchanging information securely and reliably.
