The Updox Practice Communications Management Solution Adds 2,500 New Medical Practices
Exchanging 1.5 million documents per month coordinating the care for 5 million patients
12/04/2012 – (Dublin, Ohio) Updox, the most rapidly adopted Practice Communications Management (PCM) system in the industry, today announced a major growth milestone with more than 2,500 new practices now using Updox to help transform the way medical practices communicate with each other and engage patients.
PCM systems are key for medical practices to improve internal workflows by having a single interface to manage all patient and provider communications. Updox allows patients to schedule appointments, complete forms, make credit card payments, securely message the doctor’s office and access their medical history on a practice’s website. Updox also improves communications by enabling medical practices to easily manage, route and edit documents, and then send the information directly into a patient’s chart. The practice can also send the information to other providers using NHIN Direct secure messaging or fax. By integrating all of these functions into one workflow, a PCM complements an EHR to allow medical staff to manage all aspects of communications in one place.
“In the past, medical practices may have implemented different technologies to solve specific problems like online scheduling, patient check-in and secure messaging,” said Mark Shary, chairman, Updox, “but the problem is that all of these functions need to work together and staff don’t want to use different interfaces. PCM systems like Updox focus on the medical staff and bring all of these functions together in a single user experience that is integrated into a practice’s workflow.”
A PCM can help medical practices eliminate paper costs, free up staff time, increase cash flows and increase patient engagement. These systems are also are key for practices that are planning to attain Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) status and applying for Meaningful Use funds to help with the secure exchange of information.
“Updox is what has allowed our practice to really become a 21st century medical practice. All of our incoming faxes, patient messages, and emails come to one place which makes it much easier and more efficient to manage the workflow of our office,” said David M. Lee, MD, Uptown Physicians Group. “Patients can pay their bills and schedule appointments online, which has taken a lot of stress off the front office staff and allowed them to focus on new appointments. We just had a record number of total patients and new patients seen in a month.”
The Updox PCM integrates with electronic health records and practice management systems enabling practices to place documents directly into patients’ charts and post payments. EHRs have found partnering with Updox as a way to quickly begin offering PCM functionality, such as electronic faxing, NHIN Direct messaging and online scheduling, to their customer bases.
The communications framework of the Updox PCM can also be used by health systems, regional extension centers (RECs) and health information exchanges (HIEs). These entities have used Updox to create NHIN Direct-based statewide networks, lab results delivery systems and community portals. The extensibility of the platform is ideal for groups looking to rapidly create systems for trading information.
About Updox
The Updox Practice Communications Management (PCM) system enables medical practices to improve internal workflows by having a single interface to manage all patient and provider communications. Updox allows patients to interact with a practice via the web to schedule appointments, complete forms, make payments, securely message the doctor’s office and access their medical history, including lab results and continuity of care documents. In addition, through the same workflow a practice can communicate with other providers to exchange documents such as referrals and lab results via electronic fax or NHIN Direct secure messaging. When a practice wants to exchange information, they can easily edit, sign and send a document, and then file a copy in the EHR.
The Updox PCM can be used by large hospital systems, health information exchanges (HIEs) and Regional Extension Centers (RECs) to create solutions such as personal health records for HIEs, lab result delivery networks, ad hoc electronic physician order entry systems and private labeled NHIN Direct secure messaging services. EHR and Practice Management vendors can also partner with Updox to use the PCM to provide secure messaging and portal functions to meet Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements.
More than 2,500 practices, representing 5 million patients, are using Updox every day to Transform Practice Communications and the Patient Experience.
Visit www.updox.com to learn more and sign up for a free trial today.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Michael Morgan
614.798.8170
