Securing Protected Health Information on Distributed Documents

Under the Affordable Care Act, health care providers have been incented to review their document management and transmission procedures to determine if they are compliant. Our recent Healthcare IT Pulse Survey uncovered several concerns healthcare administrators have when it comes to documents, data and the technology used to share and protect this information.

Sent to more than 1,500 healthcare customers, the survey includes hospitals, insurers, medical suppliers, and physicians/group organizations and enterprises with the majority of feedback coming from organizations with over 100 employees.  Despite the move to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) faxing still ranks as a top approach for communication and information exchange:  61% of healthcare professionals cited fax as one of the top two approaches to exchanging critical information to non-employees, second only to email. 

Similarly, digital fax proved itself to be a valuable HIPAA compliant solution as 42% of healthcare professionals said it was the most effective technology solution and 37% of respondents felt it was undervalued with respect to its security, compliance, and business capacity.  

With the Omnibus final ruling, HIPAA continues to be top of mind: 54% of respondents listed HIPAA non-compliance as their biggest worry. Faxing is also a preferred solution as organizations move to resolve HIPAA compliant information exchange issues.

Even though there are substantial privacy and security concerns associated with information exchange and storage, healthcare organizations have become increasingly distributed, making siloed repositories for documents and data increasingly inefficient. In response, organizations have started enabling more mobile options:  46% of respondents already having begun distribution of company-sponsored tablets and with 30% of respondents planning to enact similar programs within the next couple of years. 

Over 27% of respondents listed mobile solutions as their top priority for the coming year. However, with mobility comes security concern; as organizations seek compliant solutions, 44% suggested that mobile faxing would be an integral mechanism for using and sharing critical health information.

Overall, as organizations face increasing regulation and growth, mobility and security have become main concerns and cloud faxing for Healthcare has proven to be an increasingly efficient and popular solution. 

You can see all the results of the survey here: Survey Data

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