Electronic Health Reporter

In this series, we are featuring some of the thousands of vendors who will be participating in the HIMSS15 conference and trade show. Through it, we hope to offer readers a closer look at some of the solution providers who will either be in attendance – with a booth showcasing and displaying key products and offerings – or that will have a presence of some kind at the show – key executives in attendance or presenting, for example.

Even as HIMSS Media has said that its employees will be making more of an effort this year to cover the trade show floor and its vendors and events, hopefully this series will give you a bit more useful information about the companies that help make this event, and the industry as a whole, so exciting.

Elevator Pitch

Founded in 2009, etherFAX offers a solution that extends existing fax server solutions to the cloud. By eliminating the need for costly network fax systems, such as fax boards and recurring telephony fees, etherFAX leverages the Internet to manage all business-critical fax communications for healthcare organizations.

About Statement

etherFAX was established in 2009 and leverages talent with 30-plus years of experience designing and developing fax technology solutions. By eliminating the need for costly components such as fax boards, media gateways, and telephony infrastructure, etherFAX’s namesake technology, network and datacenter solutions leverage the Internet to manage business-critical fax communications.

As a hybrid fax solution, etherFAX eliminates the complexities and costs of provisioning SIP, T.38, PRI, T1, and other analog connections. By simply connecting on-premise fax server resources to etherFAX, all fax communications are securely delivered via the cloud. Say goodbye to expensive fax hardware, complex fault-tolerant designs, and costly disaster recovery solutions. etherFAX is the fax board in the cloud, capable of processing billions of faxes.

Market Opportunity

etherFAX serves the healthcare market by securely transmit electronic health records (EHRs), electronic medical records (EMRs), health information exchange data (HIEs) and unstructured patient data. etherFAX enables healthcare organizations and medical groups, insurance companies and billing operators to securely transport data and ensure compliance with government mandated regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Fully integrating with existing fax servers and applications such as EMR solutions and healthcare management systems, etherFAX leverages the Internet to manage all healthcare-critical fax communications without capacity constraints.

Services and Products Offered

HIMSS 15 Focus:

o   etherFAX – Extending existing fax server solutions to the cloud, etherFAX eliminates the need for costly network fax systems, such as fax boards and recurring telephony fees. etherFAX leverages the Internet to manage all your business-critical fax communications.

o   etherFAX SEN – Gives healthcare and enterprise organizations the capability to create their own private fax network to ensure secure data and document transmissions. Offering a simple and unique approach to document delivery, etherFAX SEN offers speed, performance and reliability without compromising security.

o   etherFAX A2E – The etherFAX A2E device, manufactured by MultiTech, provides a plug-and-play device that enables organizations to extend their existing fax machines to the cloud.

Additional Services:

etherFAX DR – Provides immediate failover for all business-critical fax communications, ensuring uptime when existing telephony equipment fails, such as fax boards, PRI lines, servers and applications.

etherFAX Toolkit – Integrating fax capabilities within applications has never been easier with the etherFAX API. The solution provides the capability to fax-enable custom developed applications in addition to enterprise resource planning (ERP), document management systems, etc.

etherFAX Colocation Services – etherFAX provides highly-secure, protected, and climate-controlled colocation services that are capable of supporting the most complex business-critical IT environments.

Problems Solved

etherFAX solves several major problems for its healthcare customers – compliance, secure transmission of unstructured data, interoperability issues and costly maintenance of telephony infrastructure.

Value Proposition

etherFAX cost-effectively allows healthcare organizations of all types to securely send and receive unstructured data. Our solution eliminates the need for costly fax telephony infrastructure, and with SEN, healthcare organizations gain the ability to create own private fax HIEs leveraging the cloud.

Key Messages

etherFAX’s key messaging surrounds fax technology development, healthcare compliance and the transmission of HIEs and unstructured data for organizations.

Fax Technology – Faxing can now be achieved without any dependency on the local telephone network altogether, which is an important advancement. They are delivered instantaneously, and without the need for cumbersome and expensive fax boards, media gateways and other telephony infrastructure. Modern-day faxing also eliminates the complexities and costs of provisioning analog connections, which are being phased out and discontinued across the country by major telecom corporations such as AT&T as we speak.

Compliance and Data Breaches – The problem with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the healthcare standard for data security, is that it is just a policy. There is no standard for regular testing to ensure network security as there is with other security standards such as PCI DSS in the financial sector. Because of this, old systems and applications are open to more security vulnerabilities without the organizations becoming aware of them. etherFAX SEN address this problem for healthcare organizations.

Through etherFAX Secure Exchange Network (SEN), organizations can create a private fax network with 100 percent guaranteed delivery.  Unstructured data such as medical notes, authorizations and other patient health information (PHI) is transmitted via etherFAX SEN with end-to-end encryption.

Unstructured data – Hospitals and other healthcare organizations will always have the need to exchange “unstructured” data. Many hospitals and organizations are not taking into account the need to quickly, affordably and securely transmit unstructured data while also staying HIPAA compliant. Public cloud services are not HIPAA compliant, and this is a main issue for the healthcare industry. Healthcare organizations can work around this by extending their existing fax server solutions to the hybrid cloud, allowing both custom and popular EHR applications to communicate with each other via a private secure network, guaranteeing delivery with military grade end-to-end encryption.

Booth Number

#5482

Key Executives at Conference

• Paul Banco, CEO
• Quinn Corey, director of sales
• Robert Chichielo, chief technology officer

Clients Served

Integra, McKesson, Orthonet, NextGen, Tenet Healthcare

Selling Proposition

etherFAX is primarily sold through an extensive network of resellers.

When Founded

2009

Number of full-time employees

20

Headquarters

Marlboro, NJ

Booth Bait (Swag) Offered

etherFAX will be raffling off three Microsoft Band devices at their HIMSS booth.

Number of Previous HIMSS Conference Appearances

Two, this will be the third year in attendance.

Specific Reason for Attendance

At HIMSS 2015, etherFAX plans to connect with health IT professionals and learn more about their network security needs concerning key pain points – the transmission of data between EMRs, EHRs, HIEs and the most complex issue, unstructured patient data.

Industry Outlook

etherFAX addresses trends in compliance, the transmission of unstructured data and patient records become electronic and the transition towards IP–based networks and away from PTSN.

Compliance – As mentioned above, HIPAA is just a policy. There is no standard for regular testing to ensure network security as there is with PCI DSS in the financial sector, creating more security vulnerabilities without the organizations becoming aware of them. etherFAX SEN addresses this problem for healthcare organizations and is both HIPAA and PCI – DSS certified.

Unstructured data – etherFAX can secure unstructured data for healthcare organizations. Not only can etherFAX transport unstructured data for healthcare organizations securely, but we can do so leveraging the cloud, making the whole process more affordable, scalable and reliable.

Transition to the cloud – Faxes, or unstructured data, are commonly distributed between patients, healthcare providers, hospitals and insurance companies. As organizations transition to IP-based networks, extending fax machines to this infrastructure could pose a challenge. etherFAX’s A2E device provides a plug-and-play solution to this problem, extending existing fax machines to the cloud. etherFAX SEN can extend or replace existing telephony equipment completely providing a secure and cost-effective fax network for healthcare customers.