Hospitals have a lot to contend with these days, including complicated industry regulations, privacy laws, rising data breaches, and rapidly evolving technology. These challenges are only expected to grow, and organizations with a strong IT infrastructure are best equipped to navigate rapid or unforeseen changes, like a pandemic. Natchitoches Regional Medical Center (Natchitoches, LA) tackles industry challenges head-on using reliable IT solutions and vendor support to help maintain organizational goals, including an exceptional level of patient care.
One of these solutions is Forward Advantage’s Communication Director, which Natchitoches has relied on for enterprise-wide faxing for almost 15 years. Communication Director automates the delivery of roughly 700-1000 Laboratory and Radiology reports per day via SmartRoute technology. We were fortunate to have a sit-down with Kelsey Beaudion, IT Project Manager at Natchitoches, to learn more about their specific use case and how the solution and our service help meet organizational goals.
Natchitoches Regional insights
with Kelsey Beaudion, IT Project Manager
Q: How does your organization currently use Forward Advantage’s Communication Director Platform?
Our organization’s IT team has integrated Forward Advantage/Communication Director with our MEDITECH application for reliable delivery of Radiology and Laboratory results. The moment a report is ready, it is immediately faxed to the appropriate medical team associated with the patient’s care.
Q: Describe your experience with Forward Advantage’s service.
Forward Advantage’s technicians go above and beyond most vendors we interact with daily. We feel like a team when working on a resolution together rather than us versus them, and that is a phenomenal feeling.
Q: What helps you meet organizational goals during challenging times?
At the end of the day, it does not matter what the problem was. It’s just important that the problem be fixed. What helps us meet organizational goals is the ability to work together, and our IT team is reliant on a multitude of vendors. Sometimes that is easy and other times that is difficult. Given that our organization is a hospital providing direct patient care, especially during the pandemic, we cannot afford to be without the tools that help our clinical and support teams run efficiently. Working together to resolve any issues that occur is a great feeling and it ensures our patients continue to get the level of care we strive for every day.
Q: What challenges does Communication Director address?
Communication Director helps us send out large fax volumes in a timely fashion. Physicians rely on results being sent to them quickly and accurately, and this proves to be a significant challenge when using a manual process for high volumes. Communication Director alleviates much of this potential problem.
Q: Can you elaborate on the importance of reliable faxing in healthcare
Reliable faxing is EXTREMELY important in healthcare. We rely on accurate faxes to send out results to the providers who entrust their patients and their testing to us—in a good amount of time. If we cannot get their results to them in a timely fashion, trust in our organization will diminish. This would, in turn, have an adverse impact on referrals, reimbursement, and revenue, which would ultimately dwindle away into little or nothing because no one would trust us to get it right for them.
Q: Can you describe the motivation to upgrade to Communication Director version 4 and what the experience has been?
The biggest motivation was to eliminate manual processes. It has overall been a great experience and our teams can focus on more important tasks.
The takeaway
Quickly adapting to new challenges and rapid industry changes is critical for most healthcare organizations. Forward Advantage welcomes the feedback of its customers as a learning opportunity for others and for us as a vendor. Natchitoches provides a strong example of a medical center that invested in technology and vendor relationships to always ensure streamlined communications and consistent patient care.
Interested in learning more about Communication Director (CDS) and what it can do for your ogranization?
