Solarity

• On average, U.S. health providers receive patient information from 1,000+ sources every 48 hours
• Delays in providing information to physicians can lead to delays in treating patients
• Manually inputting data into EHR systems is time-consuming and costly

To deliver outstanding patient care, health providers depend on timely access to information—including laboratory test results, consults, physician notes, and much more. Every 48 hours, a typical healthcare provider in the USA receives information from over 1,000 individual sources, primarily via electronic fax.

Intelligent automation specialist Solarity offers a platform that helps healthcare providers to streamline and optimize these critical data workflows.

Andrew Fehlman, CEO at Solarity, explains: “Whether a provider delivers in-patient or ambulatory care, the aim is to make data available to their physicians and clinicians as quickly as possible. To achieve this, providers move large volumes of inbound information into their electronic health record [EHR] systems every day—but performing this task manually presents tough challenges.”

Many healthcare providers rely on dedicated teams to identify and classify information, and then attach the information to the appropriate patient record based on their organization’s specific EHR document taxonomy. However, this approach makes it extremely difficult to ensure accuracy and consistency, as multiple individuals must make subjective judgements about how information should be classified and filed.

Crucially, manual processing significantly increases the risk of delays in moving information into the EHR, which has the potential to disrupt front-line care services. This was the situation facing one of Solarity’s clients, a large group practice and multi-disciplinary provider with multiple locations across the northeastern United States. For several years, the provider has used an Epic-certified integration between its EHR system and OpenText RightFax™ to securely exchange data with external health partners.

Fehlman elaborates: “In the past, our client assigned several full-time equivalents to comb through inbound information, much of which it received electronically via OpenText RightFax. It was often difficult for the organization to get information into their EHR in a timely manner, and often took more than a week to add information to patient records. As a result, physicians and clinicians were sometimes unable to access information when they needed it—leading to wasted patient appointments, unnecessary re-ordering of medical tests, and higher operational costs.”