The atmosphere at HIMSS was buzzing, but a subtle shift had occurred. Bevey Miner, previously representing Consensus Cloud Solutions, now stood under the banner of eFax. It wasn’t a rebranding, but a deliberate statement: the problem wasn’t digital faxing itself, but the enduring chaos of paper faxes and, more critically, the unstructured data they spawned.
The core issue, Miner explained, wasn’t sending or receiving information – cloud faxing handled that seamlessly for 27 years. The real bottleneck was the inability to *find* data buried within faxes, scanned images, and countless other unstructured formats. This data, inaccessible to queries, was fundamentally excluded from initiatives like TEFCA, rendering a significant portion of patient information invisible.
Three years prior, Consensus Cloud Solutions had introduced an intelligent extraction solution, designed to unlock the value hidden within this unstructured data. This wasn’t just about faxes; it was about transforming any form of unstructured input into searchable, usable information. The goal aligned perfectly with CMS’s definition of interoperability: send, receive, find, and integrate – a process cloud faxing could facilitate, once the “find” component was solved.
Miner’s conversations with regulators, including Dr. Thomas Keane and Amy Gleason, underscored the urgency. Ignoring this vast pool of unstructured data, and hoping for a magical transition to FHIR, was unrealistic. The industry needed a solution that acknowledged the reality of existing workflows and leveraged them, rather than demanding immediate, wholesale change.
The focus, Miner emphasized, shouldn’t be on eliminating digital cloud faxing – a technology that was actually *growing*, particularly in rural healthcare settings. Instead, the target should be the antiquated paper fax machine. Digital faxing was a stepping stone, a necessary precursor to unlocking the true potential of patient data.
The parallels to the early days of electronic health records were striking. The initial promise of EHRs was to replace paper records with discrete, analyzable data. Once achieved, population health management, clinical decision support, and countless other advancements became possible. A digital fax, enhanced with intelligent extraction, offered the same transformative potential.
The conversation then shifted to a frustratingly familiar patient experience. Matthew Holt recounted a recent ordeal involving a referral from One Medical, a convoluted prior authorization process, and a frustrating lack of communication between healthcare providers. A simple referral had become a labyrinth of lost paperwork and unanswered calls.
The imaging center initially claimed no record of the referral, despite Holt possessing a PDF copy. After weeks of persistence, and ultimately resorting to a fax – ironically, using a trial version of a fax product – the referral finally arrived. However, even then, the center refused to accept it via email, citing HIPAA concerns.
Miner immediately identified the core problems: delayed treatment, patient frustration, and potentially compromised health outcomes. She highlighted a real-world application of their technology with imaging centers, where incoming faxes are intercepted, structured data is extracted, and orders are automatically mapped into the radiology system.
This automated process eliminates manual data entry, instantly verifies order details (like contrast requirements), and checks machine availability. The result? Patients receive text message appointment confirmations within 24 hours, a stark contrast to Holt’s weeks-long struggle. Every day of delay, Miner pointed out, erodes patient trust in the healthcare system.
The key, Miner explained, was Clarity, their AI-powered data extraction tool. Once data is extracted, it can be formatted into FHIR messages, enabling seamless integration with existing systems. This extracted data also allows for powerful, prompt-based queries – identifying, for example, patients needing specific imaging procedures and optimizing scheduling to maximize resource utilization.
The story continued, revealing another layer of complexity. After the fax was finally received, Holt received a voicemail offering an appointment… an hour away in Santa Rosa. Navigating the MyChart system to reschedule proved equally frustrating, offering only cancellation as an option. This highlighted the disconnect between data flowing through faxes and the information displayed within established EMR systems.
Miner acknowledged the fragmented nature of patient data, with information scattered across multiple systems – Epic, Oracle, MyChart, FollowMyHealth – often lacking seamless integration. She recalled past promises of patients carrying their medical records on USB drives, a vision that never materialized.
While acknowledging the challenges, Miner remained optimistic. The growing emphasis on patient access to data, coupled with the rise of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, was empowering patients to take a more active role in their healthcare. Patients were increasingly willing to question treatment plans and demand access to their complete medical history.
However, she cautioned that the industry still faced significant headwinds. Hospital systems were grappling with financial pressures and potential service line closures, potentially limiting investment in interoperability solutions. Despite these challenges, Miner believed that a growing awareness of the problem, and a commitment to addressing unstructured data, would lead to incremental progress.
Ultimately, Miner argued, patients don’t care about the underlying technology. They simply want access to accurate, timely information that enables them to make informed decisions about their health. Providers, too, want solutions that streamline workflows and improve patient care, without adding unnecessary complexity. The future of healthcare, she concluded, hinges on bridging the gap between these needs and unlocking the value hidden within the vast sea of unstructured data.
