Today Ricoh announced RICOH Healthcare Direct Services, an interoperable, secure and reliable fax alternative. At a time when information management and collaborative technologies are surging in other fields, patients can be left wondering why healthcare providers’ communication can be unreliable, potentially resulting in rescheduled appointments, lost lab results, and other costly or time-consuming errors.
The State of the Fax Machine in Today’s Healthcare Environment
At a time when information management and collaborative technologies are surging in other fields, patients can be left wondering why healthcare providers’ communication can be unreliable, potentially resulting in rescheduled appointments, lost lab results, and other costly or time-consuming errors. Additionally, medical error contributes to tens of thousands of deaths each year in America,1 bringing added calls for the reduction or elimination of manual processes that introduce the opportunity for error, such as paper-based fax. Misplaced or misdelivered faxes can result in lost lab results, incomplete communication between referring physicians and specialists, and last-minute rescheduling, all of which can add up to increased work, higher costs and inferior patient experiences.
Fax user error, paper jams, and empty paper trays contribute to 25 percent of specialists not receiving test results and records for referred patients prior to their appointment.2 For integrated delivery networks (IDNs), which can send hundreds or even thousands of faxes a day to various partners and disparate systems, those inefficiencies can add up fast, potentially forcing frustrated patients to reschedule or even decline to return for necessary care.
RICOH Healthcare Direct Services Overview
RICOH Healthcare Direct Services tackles those concerns head-on, leveraging Ricoh’s years of expertise in the healthcare space and strong technology portfolio to help reduce clerical errors, improve security and drive cost savings by eliminating the need for fax’s paper steps. Healthcare Direct Services sends information directly into the patient’s electronic health record (EHR), without fax’s opportunities for lost or mishandled information.
Today, healthcare remains one of the fax’s last strongholds in a world that has mostly moved on to faster, more interoperable technologies. Ricoh pioneered fax technology nearly a half-century ago by introducing the first high-speed fax machine for offices, helping to revolutionize fast, reliable information sharing across distances. With RICOH Healthcare Direct Services, Ricoh is applying the same ingenuity and expertise to revolutionize collaboration again for an industry that needs it most.
“One in 20 faxes never reach their final destination – that’s missed appointments; that’s redoing lab tests; that’s somebody’s health,” said Michael Campana, Senior Manager, Healthcare Marketing, Ricoh USA, Inc. “Those kinds of inefficiencies and their real-world effects are unacceptable in today’s healthcare industry. Patients know they deserve better, and they know that in many cases their health currently depends on outdated, paper-based workflows. RICOH Healthcare Direct Services brings our expertise and technologies to bear to tackle this issue and provide the reliable, secured, immediate communication that facilitates the kinds of quality care experiences that patients have been demanding.”
