– DrFirst and Adobe Sign has announced the integration of Adobe Sign e-signature solution with DrFirst’s Backline secure care collaboration platform, producing the first mobile solution for the healthcare market to offer an e-signature capability.
– Using the joint solution, providers can send SMS messages to the mobile devices of patients, caregivers, or other clinicians to share documents that require signatures.
– Once received, the patient or provider can tap a link in the text message that will take them to a secure site where they can access, review, fill in missing information, and sign documents. The entire process is fully HIPPA compliant.
DrFirst, a provider of e-prescribing, patient medication management, and price transparency solutions, announced today that its Backline secure care collaboration platform is fully integrated with Adobe Sign to create a mobile solution for the healthcare market to offer an e-signature capability.
The Bigger Picture
When a group of health plans, Epic, Cerner, the American Hospital Association, and several clearinghouses approached CMS in early 2018 to express their support for a new standard for transmitting electronic attachments, they expected the agency would quickly require the change. Eighteen months later—and 23 years after it was first proposed as part of HIPAA—the electronic attachment standard is finally slated for release as a proposed rule in December.
Payers and providers have long sought a way to quickly exchange documents such as releases of information required for prior authorization. But there is no standard format for doing so. Nor is there a standard process for the critical step of gathering patients’ and providers’ electronic signatures on the documents. Now Adobe and DrFirst are teaming up to make that last step exponentially simpler.
Adobe Sign Integration with Backline Benefits
The partners have integrated the Adobe Sign e-signature solution with DrFirst’s Backline secure care collaboration platform, producing the first mobile solution for the healthcare market to offer an e-signature capability. Using the joint solution, providers can send SMS messages to the mobile devices of patients, caregivers, or other clinicians to share documents that require signatures. Once received, the patient or provider can tap a link in the text message that will take them to a secure site where they can access, review, fill in missing information, and sign documents. The entire process is fully HIPPA compliant.
Signing documents on a mobile device is more convenient for patients and providers and can eliminate delays in care associated with collecting physical, paper-based signatures or electronic signatures through email. Backline real-time care-team messaging and Adobe’s traceable document trail consolidated into a single secure messaging format promotes better continuity and coordination of care, safer patient communication, and improved patient outcomes.
“The relationship between provider, patient, and caregiver involves multiple signatures over time, for everything from caregiver consent for patient treatment to release of information to insurance companies for prior authorization,” said Bill Bedsworth, Senior Director, Document Cloud for Enterprise, Adobe. “With Adobe Sign integrated into the Backline care collaboration platform, health care teams can focus on meaningful experiences with patients rather than administrative tasks. And patients will benefit from that ability to quickly and securely sign their important medical documents from anywhere, saving them time and hassle.”
Why It Matters
“In healthcare, every minute counts, especially when obtaining consent for a lifesaving intervention or releasing medical information to guide a clinical decision,” said G. Cameron Deemer, president of DrFirst. “That is why we are pleased to forge an agreement with a fellow market leader like Adobe to add this crucial e-signature capability to Backline. This enhancement is yet another way DrFirst continues to innovate and improve our solutions to support providers in achieving safer, higher quality care at lower costs.”
