Guest Post: GFI FaxMaker Solves Healthcare Customers’ Faxing Needs

Guest Post: This is a sponsored guest post written by James Taylor and provided by GFI FaxMaker.

HIPAA requirements are becoming a part of every technology discussion, especially within the healthcare industry. One of the biggest pain points for both doctors and dentists is faxing. The HIPAA requirements for faxing EMR/EHR records are fairly straightforward, and also fairly onerous and time consuming, and healthcare organizations are looking for better ways to do faxing. This is where GFI’s fax server software, GFI FaxMaker, steps into the scene.

Installation

Installation is easy, though it does require a domain admin account (more on that below). It can use a fax modem, FoIP SaaS service from Brooktrout, or ISDN lines, and can be installed right on your Exchange server or integrate with Exchange (or other email systems) using an SMTP connector. Install gets a 9/10.

Integration

GFI FaxMaker almost sells itself just in how easily it can be integrated into practically any client’s existing infrastructure, whether they are a private practice, or part of a huge hospital network. The email to fax and print to fax capabilities make it easy for end-users to send faxes, and helps to ensure HIPAA compliance in several ways; these include:

  1. Fax numbers can be pulled from the email client address book (GAL),
  2. Delivery confirmation reports can be automatically generated and stored with the sent faxes,
  3. Incoming faxes are delivered directly to the recipient; no paper left lying around, and no need for the user to go stand by the fax machine waiting for an incoming fax,
  4. Faxes can be stored as PDF or TIFF, and routed to network shares. Practically any client’s medical records program for EMH/EHR can consume these with no need for extra work making this another way to plug directly in to programs without needing to write any code.
  5. The ability to ‘print to fax’ makes every Windows program my clients use ‘fax capable’

    Share the printer and clients can just double-click it to start faxing from any application.

making it so easy to plug into existing infrastructure earns this a 9/10.

Fax routing flexibility

GFI FaxMaker’s routing capabilities are its best feature. You can automatically deliver faxes to users, network folders, or printers, based on several different attributes including:

If your senders’ fax machines identify themselves by CSID, you can route using that, or you can set up extensions for each user without having to get dedicated lines. Of course, it can use dedicated lines too. OCR rocks, since it can scan for the recipient’s name and deliver the fax by ‘reading’ the To: line on a cover page or finding a keyword in the body of the fax. Just don’t expect it to decipher a doctor’s handwriting.

It can also automatically archive inbound and outbound faxes as PDF or TIFF format, making it easy to import faxes into other programs or to keep a secured archive.

Most organizations are very big on electronic archiving, and they don’t have the budget to get every single doctor and PA in the practice their own fax number, so I give this a 9/10.

What I like

GFI FaxMaker installs very easily, integrates with every email environment without having to install anything on the mail server, and sets up a shared printer so users can simply print to fax. It is easy to setup, easy to understand, and just works. Getting rid of the fax machines, the stocks of ink, and all the paper left lying around that goes along with a traditional fax is great, and with no more incoming faxes hitting the output tray, there’s no chance of confidential patient information (EMR/EHR) being at risk. Considering how big a concern that is for HIPAA compliance, and how little space most offices have to ‘secure’ a traditional fax machine, this is a huge benefit and earns GFI FaxMaker a 10/10 for convenience and compliance.

What I don’t like

The one thing I don’t care for is that GFI FaxMaker wants to run under the account of a domain admin. Small offices running SBS don’t seem to care, but hospitals with Information Security departments take exception to this. Two things; no software should want to run as a domain admin, and any software that isn’t going to run as system ought to run under a service account. If you let it run under your user account, it will break in a couple of months when you change your password. In terms of how I rate this product, that counts off more than anything else.

I would also prefer the print drivers to be signed by Microsoft; I know that takes time, but it is a jarring warning in bold red when you go to install it on a Windows server.

The bottom line

GFI FaxMaker is an excellent faxing solution for health care organizations, whether they are private practice or attached to major medical centers. It’s easy to use, is able to integrate into existing systems, and contributes to HIPAA compliance – making itself a great solution on its own merits; the amount of time, money, and administrative support it saves your IT support helps it pay for itself in no time. I rate it a very strong 9/10, and bet you will too.

With all that it has to offer, GFI FaxMaker may be the best new application your healthcare practice has ever seen. But don’t just base it on my great experience, see for yourself.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

2 Comments

  • just starting to look for a fax server and we have had a win 2k server for a long time . We dont use the exchange server that often because we were having trouble with email trans missions for a while and everyone now uses their own. (small office 4-6 employees). we also use the cisco ip phone but we dont we dont use VOIP.
    is exchange server necessary for this to work
    how do we make it HIPPA compliant
    if 4-8 people may use it is there additonal cost

  • @c stokes: Exchange server isn’t necessary, it will work with just about any SMTP server. A pre req though is having IIS SMTP service installed on the FaxMaker box. Would be good if you could get the Exchange server side sorted out, as it does help to have a consistent and centralized email eco system in place. Helps as well when you want all company communications archived centrally as well, but that is a different discussion.

    For receiving faxes, you can have faxes routed to a file system folder. This way the received faxes are not sent to you in an actual email, but dropped into a folder of choice instead. If your Exchange server is on site, as is your fax server, then sending faxes to the GFI FaxMaker server is all local, it doesn’t leave the confines of your network until the fax server sends it as a fax. Regarding the telephony side, you can use analog or ISDN fax cards or you can use supported Fax over IP drivers, depending on your set up of course. That is one of the good thing with GFI FaxMaker. It is extremely flexible.

    GFI FaxMaker is licensed by users and lines. That is the number of users who would send or receive a fax, and the number of lines you wish to use to achieve this. A base GFI FaxMaker license comes with support for 5 users and 4 lines. Hope this helps a little.

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