Florida Heart and Vascular Associates sends and receives approximately 3,000 faxed pages per week, and “incoming files from primary care physicians detail prior procedures and other medical history. Outgoing documents summarize recommendations or services provided by Florida Heart and Vascular Associates’ specialists.”

Officials of Open Text said that faxing is “the most convenient method for exchanging paper-based medical records. All communications are regulated by HIPAA for confidentiality and detailed history.” Chris Patterson, IT administrator with Florida Heart and Vascular Associates, noted that for years, the office sent and received faxes via five fax machines, each with its own line and number: “We would only give out a main fax number in company information, causing that line to be constantly barraged with incoming faxes.”

As Patterson said, the practice’s growth meant “we needed a way to consolidate our faxing procedure.” So they changed the way they do things, and now employees handle document-related tasks, including faxing, directly from four Konica Minolta (News - Alert) bizhub C451 multi-function devices integrated with Open Text Fax Appliance, formerly FaxPress.

“If we had known then what we know now, fax integration with MFPs would have been our number one priority when we installed Open Text digital fax,” Patterson commented, adding that “Open Text Fax Appliance by itself is nice. But the Web- or Windows-based interface will only get you so far when you still have paper-based charts like we do. Fax Appliance integration with the Konica Minolta MFPs works so well, we eliminated all of our fax machines except one, which is kept for backup purposes.”

With the Via Fax Appliance incoming records, as well as confirmations for delivered charts, arrive as PDF files to email addresses assigned to each Konica Minolta MFP. The files are routed to a public folder in Microsoft (News - Alert) Outlook where employees have access to view, forward, store, and print faxes as needed.

The result, Patterson said, is faxes are now backed up, easy to access, and digitally archived for seven years. “Using Fax Appliance, we now have all the information about faxed records logged, categorized, and ready for review. Now we have an open fax line at all times.”