Efficiency and accountability are key ingredients for successful hospitals in an era where patients and physicians are more selective with where they receive and refer care. Outside providers are more likely to refer patients to hospitals with reliable processes for receiving inbound documents. Traditional fax transmissions are associated with costly amounts of paper, along with wasted time and manual errors from scanning. Furthermore, printed faxes can be easily lost or misplaced and may not be verified quickly when a hospital needs to prove receipt or a mis-order by a referring physician. All of this has potential to frustrate providers and hospital staff, delay patient care, and prevent timely reimbursement.
In response to these challenges, Forward Advantage developed RapidFiler™ to streamline the electronic filing of inbound documents to the MEDITECH Echart. RapidFiler™ is successfully used for many use cases, so we reached out to some of our top customers in various stages of implementation for feedback. A big thank you to:
Mike Roberts, VP of IT/CTO at Appalachian Regional Healthcare
Gordon Miller, Business Analyst III at Kingman Regional Medical Center
Reggie Josey, Applications Systems Analyst at Carteret Health Care
Paul Allain, Systems Analyst at Lawrence General Hospital and Health System
Hayley Olmsted, Senior Applications Analyst at Emanate Health Queen of the Valley Hospital
What is RapidFiler™?
RapidFiler™ is a desktop-based tool that works in conjunction with Forward Advantage’s Communication Director or any third-party system capable of delivering/dropping a file into a designated folder. RapidFiler monitors the drop folder, recognizes new files, and allows end users to electronically manipulate them before associating with a patient’s MEDITECH Echart. RapidFiler™ customers agree this results in less manual intervention, more reliable workflows, and a more complete patient record.
"We were struggling with too much paper, scanning, and manual processes. This gives us the automation to get data directly into the EMR so information is available faster and where users need it.” - Mike Roberts
"We use RapidFiler to process inbound faxes. We can easily file the faxes in the patient's chart in MEDITECH.” - Gordon Miller
"Outside offices send reports to RapidFiler™ which then go automatically into the EMR for staff to use. RapidFiler works well and is more dependable than faxing to a physical fax machine and then having to manually scan into the EMR.” - Reggie Josey
Streamline ambulatory and acute workflows
RapidFiler™ provides a single tool for managing incoming documents, including faxes, scans, TIFFs, and PDFs, and it integrates directly with MEDITECH’s Data Repository and ECM filer. This flexible solution streamlines ambulatory and acute workflows for fast access to important documents like referrals, orders, outside lab reports and more. Folders can be created to organize these incoming documents by form type, department, or whatever best matches your needs. The following are typical use cases:
Laboratory, Radiology, Surgery and Outpatient Special Procedures – orders (including STAT orders) sent by area physicians for tests and procedures
Labor and Delivery – receiving prenatal forms
Wellness Center – receiving cardio rehab orders
Physical Medicine – communication with area providers for PT/OT/ST
Case Management – sending and receiving insurance and intake information for patients
Materials Management – receiving order confirmations
"All our ambulatory locations will be using RapidFiler™. From what I can tell, it will help immensely by getting the documents directly into the Echart. Manually scanning and getting documents into the chart is very time consuming." - Paul Allain
"Inbound faxes are sent to the appropriate folder in RapidFiler™. The various clinics and departments can then move the fax to the patient's medical record, print the fax, move the fax to a different folder, or discard it.” - Gordon Miller
Reduce paper, time, and errors
A reduction in paper and time spent on manual processes is a universal driver for implementing RapidFiler™ and can result in considerable cost and time savings. Adding to these savings is the fact that manual processes are traditionally associated with user errors, which can also be costly and time consuming. Valuable resources that could be better spent elsewhere are instead tracking inbound documents that may have been lost, misplaced, or undelivered.
"Works well and is more dependable than faxing to a physical fax machine and then having to manually scan into the EMR.” - Reggie Josey
"The main benefit of RapidFiler™ is the ability to receive the fax as an electronic file and move it to the medical record without having to print it. It certainly saves time handling inbound faxes.” - Gordon Miller
Built-in auditing for better accountability
Do you struggle with frequent calls from outside providers or other referring entities? Mistakes happen, but they’re not always on behalf of the hospital. Referring providers may forget to send a document, send the wrong document, or leave out important information or requests. Additionally, your team may have follow-up questions, but the document needed for clarification has already been discarded. With RapidFiler’s built-in auditing and advanced search functionality, a “paper trail” is always readily available.
"RapidFiler™ has a nice auditing feature. I can follow up with managers who have specific questions about a fax, and I can recover faxes that have been discarded.” - Gordon Miller
"We have less miscommunications with surgeon offices since we have a paper trail of the request. If there was a miscommunication previously, but the form was lost, we had nothing to back up why we booked the way we did. Now we have the form to show that they forgot to request special equipment or requested the wrong procedure.” - Haylay Olmsted
Quickly implemented with readily-available support
Our surveyed customers all reported a smooth RapidFiler™ implementation that was completed within a couple of weeks. Forward Advantage’s close partnership with MEDITECH helps maximize implementation efficiency, and our team works closely with customers during all stages to ensure a smooth transition.
"The support team was quick and efficient, and RapidFiler™ was fairly simple to implement over a couple of weeks.” - Reggie Josey
"We process about 4,200 faxes a day (inbound and outbound) and suggest hospitals ensure they have enough fax lines to handle their traffic. I have had great experiences working with Forward Advantage and can usually get a response within a couple of hours.” - Gordon Miller
"RapidFiler™ is a great product! We consider Forward Advantage a trusted partner and they are always quick to respond to any issues." - Mike Roberts
The takeaway
Are manual processes for inbound documents wasting time and causing errors? If so, we encourage you to explore how RapidFiler™ allows users to electronically file inbound documents to the MEDITECH Echart for a more accurate patient record. RapidFiler™ provides many time-saving features including:
Rotating the view of a scanned document
Appending, separating, or combining files
Rejecting pages
Renaming files
Find out if RapidFiler™ makes sense for you by exploring the full list of features and benefits!
