King’s Daughters Medical Center goes from a 40% fax failure rate to less than 1%
Healthcare is a critical industry that simply can’t afford unreliable fax transmissions. Delayed or unreceived faxes can have far-reaching implications, such as: wasted time and resources, delayed care, slower reimbursement, and frustration that extends to staff, patients and associated clinics. This was the case at King’s Daughters Medical Center (KDMC) before it implemented cloud-based faxing through Communication Director, an automated and EHR-integrated solution for report distribution. KDMC has used Communication Director successfully for many years; however, traditional faxing through its telecom vendor was at a 40% failure rate. Now that faxing is 100% cloud-based through Communication Director, KDMC’s fax failure rate is less than 1% and staff and patients couldn’t be happier. You can read more about the success of cloud-based faxing at KDMC here.
“Faxes were not delivered or received reliably, so inconsistency was the biggest issue. This had nothing to do with Communication Director, but we had so many complaints that we had to make a change.” – Tammy Means, Telecommunications Specialist at KDMC
Faxing has come a long way in healthcare
Faxing in healthcare looks a lot different than it used to with EHR-integration, automated deliveries, and additional options like email or secure text. However, healthcare is unusual with exceptionally high fax volumes not typically seen in other industries. When coupled with limited phone lines, problem fax numbers, and FoIP incompatibility, these high fax volumes can present serious issues.
Staff at KDMC became forced to monitor faxes and resend or use a physical fax machine. In fact, Means estimates she wasted 3-4 hours per day simply monitoring and resending faxes. These delays not only waste time, but they can compromise a patient’s overall experience and even their care by holding up critical information or scheduling.
Healthcare organizations need options
As mentioned above, healthcare is unique. What most view as traditional cloud faxing doesn’t typically make sense for healthcare organizations. This is because SaaS cloud fax models that eliminate on-premises faxing servers often don’t integrate with EHRs and may not contain advanced features such as automated routing. These advanced features are important to our customers, along with the option to have flexible faxing that suits different departments with different workflows. A great solution is a hybrid, server-based faxing solution that provides the flexibility by allowing faxes to be sent through traditional phone lines, FoIP, the cloud, or a combination of the above.
An easy transition is essential
The pandemic exacerbated an existing staffing shortage in healthcare and retaining IT talent remains a struggle for many. By maintaining an existing faxing/reporting solution, organizations can add the reliability of cloud fax transmissions with minimal effort and without changing existing workflows. This results in a faster, simpler implementation with minimal-to-no learning curve. “I was amazed by how quick and simple it was to set up cloud faxing and it’s something I can easily manage myself,” shares Means. “Any user could pick it up and run with it, it’s that simple."
The takeaway
Healthcare is an ever-evolving industry, and Forward Advantage keeps a close watch on industry challenges and trends to ensure our solutions continue to meet customer needs. We added optional, cloud-based faxing to Communication Director to help customers experiencing reliability issues. Our CloudFax Connector:
Increases reliability and reduces administrative costs related to failed fax transmissions brought on by FoIP sensitivity
Provides on-demand scalability without the same fax channel capacity limitations of traditional faxing
Is easy to transition – Communication Director customers can add cloud fax transmissions to their existing faxing solution
Provides the flexibility to use cloud-based fax and/or FoIP
You can read more about the success of cloud-based faxing at KDMC in the detailed Customer Insights below. A big thank you to Tammy Means for sharing her experience with the CloudFax Connector and the positive impact it has had on KDMC, its patients, and associated clinics.
