Diamond Pharmacy Improves Customer Satisfaction and Meets HIPAA Guidelines with RightFax
"Did you get my fax? Where is my medicine?" Due to slow and unreliable manual faxing processes, Diamond Pharmacy technicians
were fielding these inquiries on an hourly basis. Once the company installed Captaris RightFax integrated with Microsoft Exchange,
it eliminated lost faxes and missed orders leading to increased satisfaction for customers and to improved productivity for
employees. It also received a solution that supports HIPAA-compliancy.
Company
Diamond Pharmacy (www.diamondpharamcy.com), located in Indiana, Pa., is the largest U.S. pharmacy services provider to correctional facilities and the largest independent
provider to nursing facilities. With more than 600 employees, the company also operates a retail division that consists of
two retail pharmacies and a medical supply location.
The Challenge
Diamond Pharmacy manages more than 1,000 faxed pages of prescriptions and medical records every day. According to Joel Akmal,
IT coordinator, keeping tabs on large volumes of time-sensitive, highly-regulated information by hand proved to be impractical,
if not impossible.
Several banks of fax machines stretched across the walls at Diamond Pharmacy supply buildings. Technicians retrieved the arriving
faxes and sorted them into mail bins according to client facilities. Other technicians then gathered, processed and filed
the documents. Walking to and from machines and bins, shuffling faxes and entering data was a full-time responsibility for
close to 180 technicians.
Besides annoyance with "rinky-dink fax machines that break down every so often," Akmal said both employees and customers were
frustrated with the slow, manual processes. A single fax or batch of faxes often took up to 15 minutes for technicians to
process. Also, though time restrictions require orders to be handled within 24 hours, the pharmacy did not have a method for
tracking inbound faxes or ensuring their security. Resultant problems with lost faxes or missed orders were sometimes not
recognized until customers called asking about the status of their prescriptions. "Technicians used to field those types of
calls on an hourly basis," Akmal said. Eventually, he lamented, "We had facilities that had stopped using our services because
of our inability to control or monitor the situation."
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) outlines strict guidelines for electronic transfer of private
health information. Diamond Pharmacy knew any replacement for its outdated, manual fax process would need to support HIPAA
regulations. "You have to verify who a user is and make sure they are authorized to view information," Akmal said. "If companies
are not HIPAA-compliant, they can get into serious criminal trouble."
The Solution
Diamond Pharmacy technicians now receive and manage prescriptions and medical records directly in Microsoft Outlook. Working
with the AEC Group, Inc., a premier Captaris partner, the pharmacy installed Captaris RightFax and the RightFax Gateway for
Microsoft Exchange. The integrated solution unites fax and email within Outlook to improve efficiency, streamline information
workflow and reduce costs. Also, instead of previous manual sorting, RightFax has been set to recognize Caller Subscriber
Identification (CSID) numbers from client facilities for automatic routing to appropriate technicians.
Diamond Pharmacy set a course to extend benefits with additional RightFax components, including:
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PDF Module - automatically detects and converts PDF and PostScript files into faxable format for network faxing
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Web Client Module - allows technicians to send, receive and manage faxes through an Internet browser
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SecureDocs Module -enables users to send digitally encrypted or certified documents via email to eliminate tampering or receive
notification when a password-protected document is opened
"RightFax just out of the box is HIPAA-compliant." —Joel Akmal, IT coordinator, Diamond Pharmacy
Results
Customer Satisfaction - Since installing RightFax, Akmal reported customer inquires due to lost faxes and missed orders are
no longer a problem. "Those calls are now almost non-existent," he said. While integration capabilities, ease-of-use and other
powerful functionality are appreciated, Akmal cites automatic notification as the most influential RightFax capability for
improved customer relations. "Customers have satisfaction knowing that their orders are being processed in a timely manner.
That's been the greatest return we've seen with RightFax."
Cost-savings and Productivity - "The cost-savings we are realizing is through customer satisfaction and increased volume with
the same number of staff," Akmal stated. Since joining Diamond Pharmacy, Akmal estimated 70 new customers with significant
fax volume but no related personnel hires. "Instead," he explained, "the staff members we do have are more productive. It's
the difference between getting up from a desk to go to fax machine and conversing along the way versus having the fax come
to your desktop where you can process it." Akmal further reported that technicians love using RightFax.
Additional cost-savings from replacing numerous analog lines with a T1 line has been a pleasant surprise to the pharmacy.
Administration is easier as well. "Everything is at your finger tips," Akmal said. "I don't have to go out to the floor every
two seconds to trouble-shoot a fax machine that's not working right."
HIPAA-compliancy - "RightFax just out of the box is HIPAA-compliant," Akmal said. As a result, it enables Diamond Pharmacy
to maintain needed certifications. The company also plans to extend existing security with a RightFax add-on module. "SecureDocs
gives us the ability to customize who receives faxes, where they print or save the documents…then it provides a log when recipients
view or save files." Overall, RightFax helps Diamond Pharmacy support customers and compliancy with ease.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Captaris - Captaris is a leading provider of Business Information Delivery solutions that integrate, process and automate the flow
of messages, data and documents. Captaris produces a suite of proven products and services, in partnership with leading enterprise
technology companies, delivered through a global distribution network. Captaris has installed over 80,000 systems in 44 countries
with 93 of the Fortune 100 using the company's award-winning products and services to reduce costs and increase the performance
of critical business information investments. For more information please contact us at www.captaris.com or call +1.520.320.7000.
AEC Group, Inc. - Established in 1992 and headquartered in McKeesport, Pa., the AEC Group offers customers an experienced partner that fuses
business solutions, systems integration, infrastructure and security. For more information, visit www.theaecgroup.comor call +1.800.552.1440.
©2004 Captaris. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a
retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the written permission of Captaris. Captaris
products Interchange, RightFax and Teamplate are trademarks of Captaris. All other company, brand and product names are the
property and/or trademarks of their respective companies.
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