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With the massive amounts of sensitive information that they
handle and the timeliness with which it needs to be disseminated,
today's healthcare providers face unique communications challenges.
Mercy Health System of Southeastern Pennsylvania manages a network
of four major hospitals in the Greater Philadelphia area, with
several more facilities soon to be added. Steve Walker is in
charge of IT network administration for the health system, and
has been instrumental in the evolution of their internal communications
infrastructure with the implementation of Biscom's FAXCOM fax
server technology.
The advantages of network faxing are numerous: protection from
viruses, providing a more secure delivery method than email,
verifiable transmission log, one-to-one connectivity and ease-of-use
from users computer desktops. Furthermore, Mercy has realized
many competitive advantages with the implementation of FAXCOM
including; enhanced doctor and patient relationships due to the
ability to respond to requests in a more timely manner, and the
opportunity to expand their business due to the inherent efficiencies
of the fax server system.
One common challenge for all healthcare
providers is finding solutions that can interface with all of the
applications on their disparate
networks. "We went from fax machines to a VAX-based system using
(a third party) fax server via modems as an interim step in our
labs. Other departments used a variety of other systems," explains
Walker. "Then we started looking for a permanent solution, so that
we could centralize our divergent systems throughout our various
departments. Biscom was one of the few that was up to the task,
and provided the best overall solution."
Biscom's FAXCOM is in use at Mercy now, allowing the
centralization of resources across their four hospital
systems. FAXCOM provides an extremely cost-effective
solution that enables Mercy to act as a central data
hub for all patient billing, radiology, lab results
and standard fax traffic for the entire network.
Other areas where the FAXCOM system has been implemented
successfully are the Mercy Health Systems Lab and Radiology
departments. When doctors send their patients to hospitals
in the Mercy network for blood tests or x-rays, the
results all pass through the Siemens radiology or Sunquest
lab system, and are then automatically faxed directly
to the doctors' offices with the corresponding fax
covers. Response to patients has greatly improved as
well, now that these results can be disseminated and
delivered much more quickly, thereby providing doctors
and their patients with better service, faster results
and, potentially, greater piece of mind.
"The competitive advantages we gain with FAXCOM are
the horsepower (the ability to handle our volume of
20-30 thousand faxes per week) and flexibility of the
system," states Walker. "The administration of the
system is very simple and the support has been absolutely
excellent. The system has performed exactly as expected."
Since 1986, Biscom has provided the healthcare industry
with reliable enterprise fax management and secure
document delivery technologies. Biscom provides complete
turnkey and software only information technology solutions
to some of the world's leading companies. The company's
FAXCOM servers provide enterprise-wide solutions that
are reliable, scalable and flexible.
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