The Road to Fax Evolution in Healthcare
In our latest webinar, Going Digital: How to Securely Exchange Data without Fax Machines, thought leaders from Vyne Medical and Moffitt Cancer Center shared practical steps to end faxing and replace it with digital solutions for better efficiency, security and data integration. During the webinar, we surveyed 100+ hospital executives nationwide on where they stand with fax elimination in their health systems. The results are eye-opening…
At the start of our webinar, we first wanted to discover what use fax currently has in health systems. A majority of webinar participants use fax machines for physician orders, followed by authorizations and supporting documentation.
What exchanges are you conducting by fax?
As the graph shows above, fax machines are being used daily for critical communication processes. Studies have shown that faxing represents 75% of all medical communication, 90% between payer and provider, in hospitals and health systems. [source: vox.com, healthcare finance news] When calculating the time and resources put into each fax, it adds up to a less efficient and more costly form of communication compared to digital solutions available.
Though faxing in healthcare continues to grow approximately 9% year after year, the industry is preparing to transition away from the dinosaur technology thanks to CMS Director, Seema Verma, challenging health systems to eliminate fax machines by 2020. Seema Verma says, “…Health care providers are in a 1990’s time warp… where doctors are faxing patient records, medical staff are manually entering results into EHRs, and hospitals are handing out data on a CD-ROM while the rest of the economy is functioning on fully digitized, integrated data that informs decision-making instantaneously.” Without laws being passed to mandate and incentivize this initiative, and the fact that we’re less than 6 months away from 2020, achieving this goal seems highly unlikely.
In February, Vyne Medical announced its initiative to help hospital executives eliminate faxing in their health systems. According to Doug Brown, Managing Partner of Black Box Research, “Healthcare consumers more frequently interact through electronic media in 2018, and while they value contact with their providers, they don’t have the patience for a lack of hospital interoperability, incorrect billing and access to scheduling and results.” So, how close is the healthcare industry to eliminating fax machines? According to survey results from the webinar, we are likely to see a lot of progress in the next decade.
At what point do you see your organization entirely eliminating paper fax?
Do you use electronic faxing?
One of the benefits of electronic faxing is the ability to easily and efficiently integrate data into the EHR by indexing to each patient record, creating a more complete patient profile. By doing so, communication is easier to locate when needed and, more importantly, not lost. With automation, fax data can be automatically exported to the EHR, eliminating time-consuming processes such as printing and scanning. Over half of our webinar attendees integrate faxes into their EHR or other systems.
Are you integrating faxes to your EHR or other systems?
While healthcare executives have fax elimination on their minds and some have taken steps closer to going completely paperless, the industry as a whole has a long way to go. Vyne Medical is dedicated to helping hospitals achieve their goals of going digital and connecting disconnected data.
For more information on how Vyne Medical can help your health system eliminate paper-based fax machines, contact us to schedule a call with one of our healthcare solution experts today
You can watch the webinar here.