Value of Choosing a Proven Healthcare Interoperability Provider

Healthcare interoperability is not a destination but a journey. The digitization of the healthcare system has led to the adoption of health IT systems and standards among leading payers and providers due to federal rulemaking and incentives. However, not all parts of the healthcare continuum can leverage the latest technology to improve health data exchange, and some still rely on paper-based systems to share patient information with providers, payers, and other stakeholders.

To level the playing field, healthcare organizations need an interoperability solution partner that can improve their current data exchange operations, reduce costs, and open the door to more efficient means for sharing sensitive information securely as technology evolves, especially the potential of the cloud and cloud-native platforms and applications.

A tried-and-true means of communication

As a form of communication, fax remains king in healthcare. However, federal efforts to ‘ax the fax’ miss an important detail — healthcare professionals consider faxing a convenient and easy-to-use solution.

“There are studies about reduced manual labor and accuracy that can happen when you don’t have human intervention. Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to be forcing organizations to change, and the reason is that standing at a fax machine is so easy,” says Bevey Miner, Consensus Cloud Solutions HIT Strategy and Global Chief Marketing Officer.

Faxing itself isn’t the problem. Unsecure fax machines and paper are. But there is a solution available.

“Even with health IT regulation and the recent strides made in healthcare with digital transformation, the industry still has a paper fax problem. And that’s not something that’s just going to disappear,” explains Miner.

“If you look at the chain of maturity in moving to digital cloud faxing, the potential for greater efficiency through digitization is clear. Once you have a document digital, there are so many more things that you can do with it. Providers can integrate a rich set of structured data. Data can be consumed in workflow platforms and act on information faster than setting up a document in a queue to be data entered.”

The key to moving beyond paper and unstructured documents (e.g., PDFs) lies in applying new forms of technology to turn images into data elements. For example, a mature form of artificial intelligence, natural language processing can extract data from a digital document and unlock data that can prove vital at the point of care. “We’re going from these unstructured silos to structured data pools, and the possibilities are endless,” adds Miner.

Critical to achieving this milestone is the realization that not all providers and payers find themselves at the same starting point.

“Organizations have to start from the beginning with something digital,” Miner observes. “The whole movement is to Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) — we’ve got some issues with that because there are numerous care settings that can’t afford technology to support FHIR. They’re not going to be able to have the technology to deploy the application programming interface and data specifications.”

Choosing a proven interoperability provider

Interoperability encompasses a growing list of modalities for moving information from point A to point B. Therefore, an interoperability provider able to support a diversity of modes for information sharing is best suited to helping healthcare organizations participate in health data exchange based on their unique needs and their ability to mature in their capabilities in the years to come.

“Not everybody’s ready for the latest standard,” says Frank Toscano, Vice President of Product Management at Consensus Cloud Solutions. “What recourse do these organizations have then? If their interoperability providers support faxing, that represents a good starting point to leverage cloud faxing and other capabilities. They do not have to give up on their technology dream because a proven provider can convert that transmitted information into a consumable format for better data processing.”

The challenge for healthcare organizations is choosing the right partner from a crowded marketplace. For example, a host of providers offer cloud-based faxing services. Still, in most cases, these are faxing platforms built and operated using their own private data centers—or a combination of their own private clouds and the public cloud. Difficult and time-consuming to manage, these solutions come at a high cost to providers and their customers.

What’s needed is a solution that takes full advantage of the potential of the cloud and cloud-native platforms and applications — technologies purpose-built for cloud computing. Unlike traditional software development that takes years to come to market, full cloud platforms built on cloud-native infrastructure leverage microservices and serverless functions explicitly designed for the cloud, able to leverage the elasticity, scalability, and redundancy that characterizes the on-demand delivery of IT resources via an internet connection. Platforms architected in this way are inherently more financially and operationally efficient, and organizations gain the advantage of working with a faxing partner with a truly cloud-native setup.

“Ultimately, we need to drive toward real healthcare transformation,” Toscano explains. “First and foremost, an interoperability provider starts with understanding the network that providers rely on to connect with providers, payers, and other stakeholders. Then that provider focuses on taking in proprietary or different formats and transforming them into actionable data without putting more pressure on healthcare organizations themselves. Of course, the security component is a critical element. But just as important is ensuring that an organization’s partners can participate in information sharing.”

A rising tide raises all ships. For the healthcare industry, an interoperability provider that combines the latest technology with deep knowledge of healthcare communications can enable real health data exchange to support data-driving decision-making.

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About Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc.

Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: CCSI) is a global leader of digital technology for secure information transport. The company leverages its technology heritage to provide secure solutions that transform simple digital documents into actionable information, including advanced healthcare standards HL7 and FHIR for secure data exchange. Consensus offers eFax Corporate, a leading global cloud faxing solution; Consensus Signal for automatic real-time healthcare communications; Consensus Clarity, a Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence solution; Consensus Unite and Consensus Harmony interoperability solutions; and jSign for secure digital signatures built on blockchain. For more information about Consensus, visit consensus.com and follow @ConsensusCS on Twitter.