The journey to achieve interoperability in healthcare has been too long and too expensive. To address this, companies have put effort into creating interoperability tools and platforms designed to make it easier to exchange data. To accelerate interoperability efforts, however, creating more technology may not the answer. Perhaps interoperability can gain more traction by putting a focus on getting more organizations on board the interoperability train.
Healthcare IT Today had the opportunity to discuss this topic with Scott Turicchi, CEO at Consensus Cloud Solutions, the world’s largest digital fax provider. Consensus helps organizations in regulated industries, like healthcare, finance, and government to transform, enhance and securely exchange digital information.
No Network Effect for Interoperability
According to Harvard Business School, the term “network effect” refers to any situation in which the value of a product, service or platform depends on the number of buyers, sellers, or users who leverage it.
The classic historic example of the network effect is the telephone. Having the first telephone in the world is completely useless since there is no one else with a telephone that you can call. When there are 10 telephones connected by a network of phone lines, suddenly the value of the telephone rises. When there are 1,000 telephones connected, the value rises even more. When there are 500,000 telephones, suddenly everyone is clamoring to join the network.
During the interview, Turicchi suggested that it is time for healthcare to look at our interoperability challenge through the lens of network effects.
When only a handful of organizations in a region (or within their own system) can exchange data electronically with each other, there is benefit for those that are connected, but the impact relative to the entire industry is small. This is the situation we find ourselves in today.
Large health systems have invested the time and cost to make their systems more interoperable. So too have Health IT vendors. However, without more organizations exchanging data with one another, the impact of these changes is minimal (for now).
“It’s good to think big,” stated Turicchi. “We should definitely have one eye on the horizon, in a world where all data in healthcare is freely flowing between all parties who need access. However, we should also think smaller. Thousands of organizations exchange a small portion of a patient’s health record today using a technology they trust. Let’s use that technology as a first step to wider interoperability. Let’s use it as an on-ramp.”
The technology Turicchi is referring to is digital cloud fax.
Interoperability Step 1 Could be Cloud Fax
Just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 9 billion fax pages were exchanged each year on average. Healthcare tops the list of industries still using fax with upwards of 75% of patient information still being exchanged in that format.
Everyone, including the ONC, wants to get rid of traditional fax machines and well we should. They are clunky, bad for the environment, and expensive to maintain. However, rather than jump from fax all the way to electronic data exchange through FHIR or APIs, Turicchi suggests that we should leverage the inherent network effect that fax still enjoys.
“We realized we could provide an on-ramp for interoperability because so many people in healthcare are still using fax,” said Turicchi. “If we can migrate them to more advanced fax solutions, like what is available nowadays via cloud-fax solutions that would be a great first step. From there we can add other functionality, like converting those electronic faxes into HL7 FHIR, direct secure messages.”
A piece of paper fed into a fax machine will always be an unstructured document, but when a digital cloud fax is transmitted and received, the possibilities are endless. Through digital cloud fax, the unstructured document can be converted to a structured document where discrete data elements, such as patient demographics, can be intelligently extracted to enable faster care.
What Turicchi was referring to was technology that converts the image sent via a cloud fax protocol into discrete electronic data. So when a staff member sends a digital unstructured document using cloud fax technology, the recipient may receive the patient’s first name, last name, diagnosis, medication information, etc. as distinct fields of data ready to be imported into the EHR, when additional functionality is added.
“We have a solution that can turn an unstructured digital fax into structured, searchable data so that vital information can be easily extracted,” shared Turicchi. “That is what healthcare organizations really want. They want actionable data that can be fed directly into a patient’s EHR. Not images from fax machines that require manual sorting and processing to make that journey.”
Leveraging Fax Familiarity and Network Effect
Despite the industry’s best efforts to axe-the-fax, fax machines remains a popular way to send patient information from one facility to another. Rather than try to switch the entire industry away from a common workflow to advanced standards, Turicchi voiced his preference to lean into cloud fax – leveraging its familiarity and near ubiquity as a way to accelerate healthcare interoperability.
In other words, Turicchi wants us to give serious consideration to using fax’s network effect to our advantage using digital fax.
“The ultimate goal is to get the right information into the right hands in real time so that the best decisions can be made,” concluded Turicchi.
Watch the interview with Scott Turicchi to learn:
- Why fax continues to be the best option if want to meet healthcare organizations where they are when it comes to interoperability
- Whether more regulation around interoperability will help or hinder healthcare
- About the early success Consensus is experiencing with the on-going implementation of Electronic Cloud Fax (ECFax) services in all Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare facilities
Learn more about Consensus Cloud Solutions at https://www.consensus.com/
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Consensus Cloud Solutions is a sponsor of Healthcare Scene
