For many organizations, the fax machine is a necessity. Increasingly, however, those entities that still require the channel are finding that legacy endpoints are not the only solution. It's possible for companies of all kinds to switch over to cloud-based or online faxing systems that eliminate aging hardware and allow faxes to be sent and received over the computer or a smartphone. This allows for security, compliance and convenience to coexist peacefully.
"Hopefully, everyone in an office where faxing is essential understands the process in general, but assisting them in finding new ways to use faxing to their advantage will be essential."
This is especially true in hospitals and other wellness facilities that are bound to legislation like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This is the kind of thing that is helping fax to make a comeback in health care. According to HealthcareITNews contributor Erin McCann, the channel is very much a part of the modern health care landscape thanks to the advancements in the tech that supports faxing.
"We have hospitals using [online fax solutions] today that have multiple facilities and whether they're faxing from an EMR, a fax machine or some type of enterprise faxing application, those faxes and those documents are being securely transmitted with end-to-end encryption," said etherFAX Chief Executive Officer Paul Banco in an interview with McCann.
It is important to consider how existing health care fax assets can be updated with IP connectivity. But implementing new, electronic, HIPAA compliant fax solutions is not a simple process. Even though people are familiar with the concept of faxing, an upgrade of this nature requires a lot of discussion and training in addition to careful considerations. So long as necessary precautions are taken, online and cloud-based faxing is possible and viable for medical professionals to leverage.
Training, change in culture essential
One of the biggest stumbling blocks for tech initiatives is user adoption. This does not necessarily mean that employees will be inherently turned off to new tools, but that they don't understand the nature of the transitions that are taking place. Health care workers have to understand why online fax services are being implemented and how they are improvements over legacy systems.
This may require some training to accomplish. Hopefully, everyone in an office where faxing is essential understands the process in general, but assisting them in finding new ways to use faxing to their advantage will be essential.
Being able to send a fax over the computer is a powerful ability for doctors to have.Old machines must be properly disposed of
Chances are that those switching away from legacy hardware are going to be sending their old fax machines to the dump. But according to KSL contributor Bill Gephardt, it's important to make sure that any possible bank of information is wiped out. Fax machines, after all, keep a thermal transfer of every message that's gone through it, and tossing this out with the fax can lead to serious instances of data loss.
"At the end of the day, new fax deployments are all about covering the bases."
"Even though you haven't used that fax in years, it could provide a wealth of information to identity thieves," Gephardt wrote. "Many homes and businesses still have an old fax machine. When they are thrown away, crooks can get enough info from the old machine to steal an identity."
This is something that all health care organizations have to be aware of. Just because something is not online doesn't mean it can't be "hacked," so to speak. Given the sensitive nature of patient records, all potential memory caches have to be removed or destroyed before getting rid of the hardware.
All it takes is one criminal to spot an abandoned fax machine for a major crisis to occur.Ensuring success
At the end of the day, new fax deployments are all about covering the bases. So long as health care employees understand what's happening and proper steps are taken to dispose of older assets, hospitals and other facilities will be able to leverage a fax system that's better suited for the 21st century.
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