“Data governance” feels like a buzzword. You can imagine a boardroom full of executives nodding sagely while PowerPoint slides flash by, filled with abstract concepts and compliance checkboxes. 

But strip away the jargon, and data governance is fundamentally about real people. Patients whose medical histories, genetic information, and most vulnerable moments are captured in databases and electronic health records. Cancer patients, diabetics, children with orphan diseases — they rely on healthcare organizations to treat their data with respect and govern it effectively.

Data governance matters, and it’s imperative that healthcare organizations follow best practices to keep this critical information safe. In this article, you’ll learn the core components of data governance in healthcare, key best practices for implementation, and the tools that can help your organization protect patient data while improving operational efficiency.

What is Data Governance in Healthcare?

We’ll start with the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) definition of data governance:

The overall administration, through clearly defined procedures and plans, assures the availability, integrity, security, and usability of the structured and unstructured data available to an organization.

Let’s break that down into simpler ideas. 

• “Overall administration”: Someone’s in charge. Data governance means establishing clear ownership and accountability for healthcare data. It’s not a free-for-all where everyone handles patient information however they want.
• “Through clearly defined procedures and plans”: There’s a framework. Healthcare organizations need written policies that spell out exactly how data should be handled, from the moment a patient’s temperature is recorded to when old records are safely destroyed.
• “Availability”: The right people can access data when needed. When a primary doctor needs to see a patient’s lab results a day later, those results should be there. When care teams must share information across departments, the data flows smoothly.
• “Integrity”: The data is accurate and trustworthy. A patient’s blood type, recorded as O-positive, stays O-positive throughout every system. Medication dosages don’t mysteriously change between the pharmacy and the nursing station.
• “Security”: Protected from unauthorized access. Patient data stays confidential, encrypted, and safe from breaches. Only authorized personnel can view sensitive health information.
• “Usability”: The data works for its intended purpose. It’s formatted consistently, easy to understand, and ready for clinical decisions, billing, or quality reporting.
• “Structured and unstructured data”: Neat database entries (structured) like lab values and messy documents (unstructured) like handwritten notes, faxes, and PDFs.

Data governance is about treating patient information as a valuable asset, ensuring it’s accurate, secure, accessible when needed, and useful for patient care.

Why Data Governance is Critical for Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare data is among the most heavily regulated information in the United States, with three core acts regulating healthcare information:

• HIPAA compliance: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act mandates strict privacy and security standards for protected health information (PHI). 
• 21st Century Cures Act & interoperability rules: The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) now requires healthcare organizations to enable seamless data sharing through standardized APIs like FHIR. Information blocking—practices that unjustly hinder data exchange—is prohibited and punishable. 
• HITECH Act requirements: The HITECH Act reinforces HIPAA’s security provisions and mandates breach notification procedures. Governance frameworks help demonstrate due diligence and audit readiness when incidents occur.

Alongside those, governmental agencies, such as the FTC, can regulate healthcare organizations. Fines by these agencies for mishandling data are high:

• $18.4 million for Mass General Brigham (January 2022): This massive settlement arose from using online tracking tools without user consent.
• $1.5 million against BetterHelp (February 2023): The FTC fined the mental health platform for inappropriately sharing identifiable user data with advertisers.
• $7 million fine for Cerebral (April 2024): The telehealth provider faced FTC action for security and privacy violations between 2019 and 2023, including sharing sensitive health information of over 3 million users with platforms like TikTok and Meta.
• 13.4 million Kaiser Permanente members affected (April 2024): A data breach involving tracking tools that may have shared patient information with advertisers 

Data governance shouldn’t be seen as merely a compliance burden to avoid penalties. When implemented effectively, data governance delivers substantial benefits beyond regulatory checkboxes.

1. Enhanced patient safety and care quality. Strong data governance ensures critical patient information — medications, allergies, medical history — remains accurate and consistent across all departments and providers. This prevents dangerous medication errors and enables seamless care coordination as patients move between specialists, emergency departments, and primary care. Clinical outcomes improve dramatically when every provider sees the same complete, up-to-date patient record.
2. Operational efficiency and cost savings. Governance frees staff from time-consuming administrative tasks by eliminating duplicate patient records and automating data validation. Nurses spend less time hunting for lab results across siloed systems and more time with patients. Organizations see immediate returns through reduced duplicate testing, faster documentation, and streamlined workflows that cut operational costs.
3. Improved decision-making. Reliable, well-governed data transforms both clinical and business decisions. Healthcare executives trust their dashboards and reports, while clinicians make treatment decisions based on complete patient information. Quality metrics accurately reflect performance, and population health initiatives succeed because they’re built on comprehensive data that reveals actual health patterns and risks.
4. Risk mitigation and compliance assurance. With potential fines in the millions, governance provides essential protection. Clear audit trails, defined access controls, and consistent data handling procedures prevent violations before they occur. Organizations can quickly demonstrate compliance during audits, avoiding penalties and protecting their reputation.
5. Competitive advantage. Patients increasingly value privacy and data security when choosing healthcare providers. Organizations with mature data governance stand out in the market, building trust through responsible data stewardship.
6. Foundation for innovation. AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics require clean, standardized data to deliver results. Organizations with strong governance are ready to deploy these innovations immediately, from AI-powered diagnostics to predictive models identifying at-risk patients. 

By establishing clear policies, accountability, and processes for managing healthcare data, organizations avoid penalties and unlock their data’s full potential for improving patient outcomes and operational excellence.

Best Practices for Implementing Data Governance in Healthcare

Building an effective data governance program requires systematic organizational planning and commitment. Here are the essential practices healthcare organizations should adopt:

1. Establish Clear Governance Structure and Leadership

Form a multidisciplinary data governance committee with representatives from IT, clinical operations, finance, compliance, and health information management. Appoint executive sponsors, such as a Chief Data Officer or Chief Medical Information Officer, to champion the program. Define specific roles: data stewards who enforce standards within their departments, technical leads who manage infrastructure, and compliance officers who ensure regulatory alignment. 

2. Develop Comprehensive Data Policies

Document clear procedures for every stage of the data lifecycle:

• Data standards: Create a single source of truth for terminology and definitions (what constitutes a “readmission” or how demographics are recorded).
• Quality metrics: Establish standards for accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and consistency.
• Access controls: Define role-based permissions determining who can view, modify, or share specific data types.
• Retention rules: Specify how long different records are kept based on regulatory requirements.
• Security protocols: Outline encryption standards, audit requirements, and incident response procedures.

3. Start Strategically and Plan for Scalability 

Rather than attempting to govern all data simultaneously, prioritize critical areas first. Focus on patient demographics, medication lists, and allergies — data that flows across multiple systems and directly impacts patient safety. Target information driving key metrics like readmission rates or quality scores. Quick wins in these areas build momentum and demonstrate value to stakeholders.

4. Break Down Data Silos

Map existing data silos across departments and systems. Implement integration solutions through APIs, health information exchanges, or enterprise data warehouses to securely connect disparate databases. Standardize data formats and terminologies across the organization. Modern interoperability platforms can help unite traditionally siloed channels like faxes, direct messaging, and EHR systems into unified workflows.

5. Leverage Automation and AI

Compliance can demand significant manual effort and resources, but modern technology makes it manageable by automating routine tasks and monitoring data quality continuously. Healthcare organizations can maintain high governance standards without overburdening staff by using the right tools.

• Use natural language processing to extract structured data from unstructured documents.
• Implement automated data quality monitoring to flag inconsistencies in real time.
• Set up rule-based systems to enforce retention policies and access controls.
• Apply machine learning to identify and merge duplicate patient records.
• Automate audit trail generation for compliance reporting.

6. Implement Continuous Monitoring

Define key performance indicators to track governance effectiveness:

• Percentage reduction in duplicate patient records
• Time-to-access for critical clinical data
• Number of data quality issues identified and resolved
• Compliance audit scores
• User satisfaction with data availability and accuracy

Review these metrics monthly with leadership and quarterly with the board. Use findings to refine policies and address emerging challenges.

7. Invest in Training and Culture

Every employee who touches data is a data steward. Develop role-based training programs covering:

• Basic data governance principles
• Department-specific data handling procedures
• Privacy and security requirements
• Quality control responsibilities

Foster a culture where data accuracy is everyone’s responsibility, not just IT’s domain.

8. Review and Adapt

Healthcare technology and regulations evolve rapidly. Schedule annual reviews of governance policies and procedures. Stay informed about new requirements like state privacy laws or updates to federal regulations. Adapt frameworks to address new data sources such as wearables, telehealth platforms, or AI-generated insights.

By following these best practices, healthcare organizations can build data governance programs that protect patient privacy, ensure regulatory compliance, and unlock the full value of their data. 

The Tools and Technology for Effective Data Governance

Strong data governance requires more than just policies and procedures. It demands the right technology partners. Modern healthcare organizations need solutions that integrate existing workflows while ensuring compliance and security.

Solutions like eFax Corporate® provide HIPAA-compliant document transmission with advanced security features, centralized administration, and EHR integration capabilities. The Consensus Cloud Solutions suite, which includes tools like Clarity Clinical Documentation™, is an AI-powered platform that transforms unstructured medical documents. Clarity creates structured, actionable data, automates the extraction and routing of critical patient information from faxes, PDFs, and other unstructured sources.

By combining robust governance frameworks with the right tools, organizations can automate compliance, break down data silos, and free staff to focus on what matters most: patient care.

Ready to strengthen your healthcare data governance? Learn how eFax can help you build a secure, compliant, and interoperable foundation for your organization’s data management needs.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

Managing sensitive data in healthcare today isn’t just about securing protected health information (PHI). It’s also about making all of your organization’s data trustworthy, usable, and accessible.

But with data coming in from so many different sources — disparate electronic health record (EHR) platforms, AI engines, imaging systems, patient-reported outcomes software, and even patient wearables — sharing and acting upon data is becoming even more challenging. That’s where an enterprise information management (EIM) framework creates significant benefits, setting the foundation for organizing, exchanging, and governing data compliantly and efficiently.

What should an EIM framework include, and how can intuitive solutions like those offered by eFax Corporate® help healthcare organizations securely derive the highest value from their data? Let’s find out.

What is Enterprise Information Management?

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) defines EIM as the policies and procedures healthcare organizations use to manage all the data they collect, from data creation and capture to processing, usage, storage, preservation, and disposition. EIM covers not just where and how data is kept but also how it is exchanged with other organizations or teams, how it is tracked over time, and how it is maintained for future use. 

EIM includes more than PHI. It also encompasses any data used for research, analytics, or even operations, such as data inside enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) databases.

A robust EIM framework gives your organization a structured approach to managing all of your data by defining clear policies for data ownership, access, classification, and compliance. What might this look like in real life? Consider the scenario of a patient with diabetes who is admitted to a regional hospital after a fall. 

• Ownership for this patient’s data — including clinical notes, lab results, imaging, and medication records stored in the EHR — is assigned to the organization, while clinicians and staff with appropriate access are responsible for accurate data entry and maintenance.
• Access to the patient’s data is governed by role-based permissions. An attending physician can view the full record, while radiology may only see scans in the PACS system. Billing teams can access demographics and ICD-10 codes necessary for invoicing tasks, but they cannot see clinical notes. 
• Classification is tagged by labels and metadata indicating the type of PHI, such as referrals, imaging scans, or discharge summaries, along with specific routing, retention, and security rules based on data type.
• Compliance is ensured with data in transit and at rest through HIPAA- and HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF)-certified solutions, with audit trails and automated monitoring to track who accessed patient info and when. 

By developing a framework that addresses these four concepts, organizations can arm their clinicians, providers, and patients with accurate, reliable data.

Benefits of Enterprise Information Governance in Healthcare

Organizations that set and follow clear guidelines for using patient data will experience multiple benefits, including:

Improved patient care. When clinicians can access complete patient data faster, regardless of where the data originated, they can make more accurate and timely clinical decisions that create better outcomes. An EIM framework eliminates the bottlenecks of siloed data, reducing the risk of missed diagnoses or delayed treatment.

EIM in action: In the Emergency Room, physicians treating a patient with chest pain can instantly access notes from a prior cardiac visit at another hospital, EKGs from a cardiologist’s office, and medication records from a skilled nursing facility (SNF) to make a definitive diagnosis.

Operational efficiency. A strong EIM strategy reduces redundant data entry and manual document retrieval so healthcare organizations can achieve their margin targets. “We’re trying to bend the cost curve by maintaining our FTE levels, even with substantial growth on the horizon,” Lynn Ansley, vice president of revenue cycle management at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., told Becker’s Hospital Review. “That has to be a very intentional effort that is based on the use of new technology.”

EIM in action: Staff members at a multi-location physician group no longer spend time tracking down patient faxes. Instead, they use Clarity Clinical Documentation™ to extract critical patient demographics from faxes and convert them into a structured Continuity of Care document. As a result, staff saves time, and the practice saves money.

Fewer compliance headaches. Healthcare organizations can avoid costly HIPAA violations with a framework that ensures data is handled securely and consistently enterprise-wide and only accessed by those who truly need the information.

EIM in action: Audit logs inside an Emergency Room show exactly who accessed a patient’s behavioral health record and when, providing peace of mind during an OCR audit and helping the compliance team respond quickly and confidently. 

Fewer handoff errors. When patients move between care settings, such as from hospital to SNF or from urgent care to primary care, their data must move with them. Without a seamless transfer of data, providers may end up with incomplete or outdated records, which can create delays, redundant testing, medication errors, or missed follow ups. EIM solves this problem by providing accurate, updated data during transitions of care.

EIM in action: A patient discharged from a hospital to a post-acute rehab facility arrives with discharge instructions, updated medication lists, and physical therapy orders already in the system, preventing any potential oversights.

Increased trust with patients and families. Patients count on their healthcare providers to keep their data safe. EIM maintains this sacred trust by protecting their PHI and communicating it to their care teams safely.

EIM in action: After visiting an Urgent Care center for a follow-up infection, a parent is relieved to know that their child’s pediatrician already has access to the visit summary, lab results, and prescribed treatment their son needs, delivered securely via encrypted channels instead of through paper faxes or unsecured emails.

Add up the benefits and healthcare leaders soon discover that an EIM framework doesn’t only improve their organization but also enhances patient outcomes throughout the continuum of care.

Standards to Include in an Enterprise Information Governance Framework

The good news about creating an EIM framework is that you don’t have to start from scratch. Proven standards exist that provide the structure and guidance healthcare organizations need to manage data securely.

• ISO/IEC 27001 defines the requirements an EIM framework must meet, including guidance for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an information security management system to ensure PHI remains encrypted, access controlled, and monitored.
• ISO 9001 is a global standard for quality management systems that supports the delivery of high-quality patient care and continuous improvement.
• HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) is an assessment and certification system that proves an organization’s commitment to cybersecurity, thereby reducing the risk of data breaches, cyberattacks, or ransomware events.

Grounding your strategy in these established frameworks will create a sense of trust both inside and outside your organization, while giving you the tools to strengthen your EIM strategy over time.

A Step-by-Step Framework for Successful Enterprise Information Management

With a thoughtful approach and the right cloud-based solutions, you can move from planning to action and start constructing your ideal EIM framework. Follow these five steps:

Step 1: Define Your Governance Strategy and Policies

Governance is the bedrock of an effective EIM strategy. Ensure strong governance from the start by establishing policies outlining who owns the data, who can access it, how it can be shared, and how long it’s kept. Include key staff members from IT, operations, and clinical teams in these conversations, and communicate the final policies organization-wide.

Bolster your EIM strategy with solutions that will give IT teams appropriate visibility and control over data governance. eFax Corporate®, for example, is a secure, cloud-based fax solution that integrates with EHRs, allowing healthcare organizations to send and receive faxes from their existing workflows. With eFax Corporate, IT teams can assign several levels of access to users from a centralized dashboard. Plus, eFax Corporate is ISO 27001-certified and PCI-DSS compliant, offering maximum protection for patient data and credit card holders.

Step 2: Classify and Organize Your Data

Once you have governance in place, you can begin to structure your data. Group information into categories, such as patient demographics, insurance details, and medication histories. Then, establish standard naming conventions and apply metadata so clinicians and staff can retrieve the data they need quickly and easily.

At this stage, accuracy is paramount. Seek solutions that use leading-edge innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to reduce re-keying of information and put key pieces of data in standardized, interoperable formats. Clarity CD, for example, autonomously extracts essential patient demographics from faxes with AI and NLP, then converts them into a structured Continuity of Care document, minimizing manual data entry and enhancing data integrity.

Step 3: Implement Security and Compliance Controls

You could argue that this step is the most important, considering that 2024 was the worst year ever in terms of breached healthcare records. Furthermore, several major healthcare breaches have already occurred in 2025. Protect your organization and remain HIPAA compliant by encrypting data both within your organization’s four walls and when it’s shared externally. Bolster your data security posture by choosing solutions that follow proven security protocols.

eFax Corporate is fully HIPAA compliant, with AES 256-bit data encryption for data at rest, TLS (transport layer security) for faxes in transit, and features like a VPN for document transmission. eFax Corporate is also HITRUST CSF certified, aligning with the “gold standard” for healthcare compliance frameworks.

eFax Unite™, a healthcare interoperability platform, streamlines clinical workflows and allows organizations to share patient data securely. With Direct Secure Messaging capabilities built on a DirectTrust framework, eFax Unite allows providers to safely communicate with statewide health information exchanges (HIEs) and referral networks.

Step 4: Monitor and Improve Continuously

Set-it-and-forget-it doesn’t work in EIM. Instead, organizations must review and improve their frameworks continuously. Conduct regular audits to ensure that staff and clinicians follow policies appropriately. Track metrics around access, usage, and system performance so you can find potential problems early and remediate them. Ask frontline staff for feedback and remove any bottlenecks or data silos that cause inefficiencies.

As you build out this part of your framework, look for solutions that make data tracking and auditing effortless. eFax Corporate assigns a unique patient identifier to each fax and provides a complete audit trail so users can track every sent and received fax. And with a robust archive, your organization can access and store all faxes for the entire life of your eFax Corporate account.

Step 5: Ensure Interoperability and Integration

The last step can be the hardest, especially for organizations burdened with legacy technology that is costly to maintain and difficult to integrate. However, you can still reap the benefits of interoperability by adopting data exchange standards like HL7 or FHIR and selecting solutions with application programming interfaces (APIs) that can connect seamlessly to newer and older systems.

Consensus’s suite of solutions, including eFax Corporate, eFax Unite, and Clarity CD, supports full EHR/HIE interoperability and uses APIs for ready-made integrations. eFax Unite can be directly integrated into PointClickCare, allowing users to match documents to the associated clinician and port data directly into the correct resident chart.

Additionally, healthcare organizations using an EHR from athenahealth can leverage the eFax integration with athenaOne®. This powerful integration delivers digital faxes, patient records, and users directly to the right departments within athenaOne, giving clinicians critical information faster.

Support Your EIM Framework With the Right Solutions

Given the complexities of keeping PHI and other sensitive data secure, a patchwork approach to EIM won’t cut it. Building a comprehensive EIM framework based on proven protocols and strict compliance ensures the proper classification, protection, and exchange of critical healthcare data. With a framework in place, you can then integrate cloud-based tools into your workflows to save clinicians and staff time and make stronger connections with patients. Request a demo of Consensus Cloud Solutions’ products today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

As a developer tasked with maintaining your organization’s communication infrastructure, you’re likely juggling multiple systems, platforms, and integration challenges. Even with the rise of emails and digital messaging platforms, faxing remains a necessity, particularly in industries that prioritize security and compliance. However, legacy fax systems are cumbersome, lack scalability, and don’t offer the flexibility needed for modern application environments.

This is where the eFax Enterprise Fax API steps in. Designed with developers in mind, this RESTful API allows developers to integrate faxing functionality directly into existing applications—whether it’s a healthcare system, such as an EHR or ERP—without the need for hardware or complicated protocols. eFax’s Fax API offers high-volume faxing, scalability, and industry-leading security features, making it a solution for developers in industries like healthcare, finance, and law.

Let’s explore what makes our Fax API an invaluable tool for developers and how it can be integrated into your applications with minimal friction.

Why Developers Should Consider Fax APIs

Faxing might seem outdated, but the reality is that many industries still rely on fax for transmitting critical documents. This is especially true in highly regulated fields where compliance with standards like HIPAA, SOX, and GLBA. Fax APIs offer a better alternative to traditional faxing methods by allowing developers to build faxing capabilities into their applications, retaining control over the entire process.

Here are a few reasons why you, as a developer, should consider using eFax’s API in your projects:

1. Simplified Integration with RESTful Standards: The Fax API is built on RESTful standards, meaning it operates over HTTP/HTTPS and uses standard web protocols like JSON and XML for data interchange. This makes it possible to integrate with existing applications—whether you’re building web, desktop, or mobile solutions. With well-documented endpoints, you can quickly develop, test, and deploy faxing functionalities into your workflow.
2. High-Volume, Production-Grade Faxing: Designed for enterprise-level usage, eFax’s Fax API supports high-volume faxing, making it an excellent choice for industries that need to transmit large quantities of documents regularly. Healthcare providers, for example, can leverage the API to fax prescriptions, medical records, or referrals directly from EHR systems. The same applies to finance and legal industries, where bulk transmission of sensitive documents is a daily requirement.
3. Advanced Security and Compliance: Security is a top priority for developers working in industries that handle sensitive data. The Fax API employs TLS 1.2 encryption for fax transmissions and AES 256-bit encryption for stored faxes, ensuring that both inbound and outbound documents are fully protected.
4. Comprehensive Auditing and Reporting: The Fax API includes robust auditing and tracking features, offering detailed logs for every sent and received fax. These logs can be accessed via the API to help developers build custom dashboards or integrate reporting functionality into their applications. You can track over 20 different metrics, such as transmission status, unique fax IDs, and retry attempts, giving you full transparency over your organization’s faxing activities.

How eFax Enterprise API Works: A Developer’s Perspective

From a developer’s viewpoint, integrating eFax’s API is straightforward. The API handles the heavy lifting, such as transmission retries and metadata logging, leaving you to focus on building the core features your application needs. Here’s a quick rundown of how the process works:

1. Authentication: The API uses OAuth2 for token-based authentication. As a developer, you’ll start by obtaining an access token that will be used for authenticating your requests. OAuth2 ensures secure, controlled access to the API, which is crucial for applications dealing with sensitive documents.
2. Sending Faxes: To send a fax, you simply need to call the appropriate endpoint with the required parameters—such as the recipient’s fax number, the document to be sent (usually in PDF or TIFF format), and any optional metadata like cover sheet details. Once the request is submitted, the API handles the rest: it processes the fax, assigns a unique transmission ID, and sends it to the recipient. The transmission status and other relevant data are automatically logged.
3. Receiving Faxes: The inbound faxing process is just as seamless. When a fax is received, it’s stored as a PDF or TIFF file on eFax’s secure servers. You can retrieve the document by calling the API and downloading it directly into your application. Additionally, metadata such as the sender’s information and transmission time is available for retrieval, enabling easy storage or further processing.
4. Monitoring and Reporting: Developers can also use the API to monitor fax transmissions in real-time. Unique transmission IDs allow for precise tracking of each fax, and the API provides access to a range of reports, including success rates, retries, and error codes. This level of transparency helps ensure that the faxing process is running smoothly and allows you to identify and troubleshoot any issues promptly.

Key Features Developers Will Appreciate

1. RESTful Architecture for Easy Integration: RESTful APIs are widely regarded as the most flexible and scalable API design. Since the eFax Enterprise Fax API adheres to RESTful principles, it uses standard HTTP requests such as GET, POST, and DELETE, and formats responses in JSON or XML. For developers, this means you can easily integrate fax functionality into your existing applications without needing to learn new protocols or deal with outdated technologies.
2. Token-Based Authentication with OAuth2: Security is simplified through OAuth2, which allows you to authenticate requests securely. By using token-based authentication, developers can ensure that only authorized users or applications can access fax functionalities, enhancing both security and control.
3. Customizable Retry Schemes: No more worrying about failed fax transmissions. With the Fax API, you can define custom retry schemes—specifying the number of retries and the interval between each attempt. This feature is critical for developers working in industries where guaranteed delivery is a must, such as healthcare and finance.
4. Unified Billing for API and eFax Corporate: Managing billing across multiple systems can be a headache for developers. eFax makes it easier by offering unified billing across both the API and the eFax Corporate® solution. This consolidation not only simplifies administration but also reduces the complexity of managing multiple services.

Use Cases: Building with eFax Enterprise API

1. EHR Integration for Healthcare Providers: As a healthcare developer, you’re likely familiar with the challenges of integrating multiple systems while maintaining strict compliance with HIPAA. eFax’s Fax API offers integration with EHR systems, allowing healthcare providers to send and receive medical records, prescriptions, and lab results directly from within their healthcare software. This reduces manual faxing, lowers the risk of human error, and speeds up critical processes.
2. Secure Document Transmission for Financial Organizations: In the financial industry, ensuring that sensitive information like loan applications or tax forms is transmitted securely is critical. With our Fax API, developers can build secure, compliant document transmission capabilities directly into their ERP systems. The API’s encryption standards and comprehensive audit logs ensure compliance with regulations like SOX and GLBA.
3. Document Workflows for the Legal Industry: For developers in the legal domain, integrating fax capabilities into Document Management Systems (DMS) can save time and enhance security when dealing with client contracts, court filings, and other sensitive legal documents. The Fax API simplifies these processes while ensuring compliance with GDPR and other relevant regulations.

Why eFax API is a Developer’s Best Friend

The eFax Enterprise Fax API offers developers a secure, scalable, and straightforward way to integrate fax functionality into modern applications. Whether you’re building for healthcare, finance, or any other industry where faxing is still a core part of communication, this API provides all the tools you need to deliver high-volume, compliant faxing capabilities without the hassle of managing hardware or outdated protocols.

By leveraging a RESTful architecture, advanced security features, and seamless integration with existing systems, developers can quickly add faxing to their software stack, allowing organizations to maintain compliance, improve efficiency, and ultimately enhance their digital workflows.

eFax Enterprise Fax API is the developer-friendly solution that makes cloud faxing modern, secure, and easily manageable.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

What is a RESTful API?

A RESTful API, or Representational State Transfer API, is a powerful architectural style that allows software applications to communicate over the internet. Leveraging standard HTTP protocols, RESTful APIs facilitate seamless data exchange between clients and servers, making them essential for modern applications. Understanding what a RESTful API is requires exploring its core components, principles, benefits, and real-world applications, such as the eFax Enterprise Fax API.

What is an API?

At its core, an API (Application Programming Interface) defines the rules and protocols for how software components interact. It allows different systems to communicate programmatically, enabling developers to leverage existing functionalities without needing to build everything from scratch. For instance, an HR management system can use an API to send employee documents directly to a payroll service, streamlining processes that would otherwise require manual intervention.

The eFax API is a specific example of an API that allows applications to send and receive faxes over the internet. By integrating fax capabilities directly into their existing systems, businesses can eliminate the need for traditional fax machines and paper, thus streamlining communication and enhancing efficiency.

What is REST?

Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style used for designing networked applications. REST utilizes existing protocols, particularly HTTP, to enable communication between clients and servers in a stateless manner. In a RESTful architecture, resources—such as documents or data—are identified by unique URLs, and interactions with these resources are performed using standard HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.

The principles of REST emphasize scalability, simplicity, and the separation of client and server concerns. This makes REST an ideal choice for developing web services, including APIs like the eFax API. By adhering to REST principles, the eFax API can deliver efficient, reliable, and easily maintainable faxing services.

RESTful APIs adhere to several core principles:

• Statelessness: Each request from a client to a server must contain all the information needed to understand and process that request. The server does not store any client context, making each interaction independent and scalable.
• Resource-Based: RESTful APIs focus on resources, which can be any type of data (e.g., documents, images, services). Each resource is identified by a unique URL, and clients interact with these resources using standard HTTP methods.
• Standardized Interface: RESTful APIs use a uniform interface to ensure that clients and servers can communicate effectively. This is often achieved through standard HTTP methods, such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.
• Client-Server Architecture: RESTful APIs promote a separation between clients and servers, allowing each to evolve independently. This separation facilitates better scalability and maintainability.

How Does a RESTful API Work?

A RESTful API operates on a request-response model. Here’s a breakdown of how it functions:

• Client Sends a Request: The client (like a web application or mobile app) sends an HTTP request to the API endpoint, specifying the action to be performed—such as sending a fax through the eFax API.
• Authentication: Before processing the request, the server verifies the client’s identity through authentication methods, ensuring that only authorized users can access the system.
• Processing the Request: The server processes the request according to specified parameters (e.g., the fax number, document to be sent, or additional options).
• Server Sends a Response: Once processed, the server sends back a response to the client. This response includes a status code indicating whether the operation was successful, along with any relevant information, such as the status of the sent fax.

What Are the Benefits of RESTful APIs?

Now that we understand what a RESTful API is and how it works, let’s explore its benefits:

• Scalability: The stateless nature of RESTful APIs allows for efficient handling of requests, enabling systems to scale without performance bottlenecks. Since the server does not retain client context, it can handle multiple requests simultaneously without increased load.
• Interoperability: RESTful APIs can be implemented across various platforms and programming languages. Interoperability enables developers to create applications that can easily integrate with other systems, fostering collaboration between different technologies.
• Simplicity: The straightforward design of RESTful APIs, which relies on standard HTTP methods, makes them easy to implement and use. This simplicity reduces the learning curve for developers and accelerates the development process.
• Caching: RESTful APIs support caching mechanisms, which can significantly improve performance. By storing responses temporarily, clients can reduce the number of repeated requests to the server, leading to faster load times and reduced server load.
• Security: RESTful APIs can incorporate various authentication methods, ensuring secure access to sensitive data. Common authentication methods include OAuth, API keys, and HTTP authentication, which help protect against unauthorized access.
• Stateless Operations: Each request is self-contained, allowing clients to interact with the API without worrying about the server’s state. This design enhances reliability and reduces the complexity of managing client sessions.

What Does a RESTful API Client Request Contain?

A RESTful API request typically consists of several key components:

• Unique Resource Identifier: Each resource is identified by a unique URL. This URL serves as the endpoint where clients can access or manipulate the resource.
• HTTP Method: The method indicates the desired action. Common methods include:
  • GET: Retrieve data from the server.
  • POST: Send data to the server to create a new resource.
  • PUT: Update an existing resource.
  • DELETE: Remove a resource from the server.
• HTTP Headers: These headers contain metadata about the request, such as content type, authorization tokens, and client information.
• Data: In cases where the method requires it (like POST or PUT), the request may include data that the server needs to process.
• Parameters: Optional parameters can be included to provide additional context for the request, such as filtering results or specifying the desired output format.

What Does the RESTful API Server Response Contain?

When a server responds to a RESTful API request, the response generally includes:

• Status Line: This contains a status code indicating the outcome of the request. Common status codes include:
  • 200: Success
  • 201: Resource created successfully
  • 400: Bad request
  • 404: Resource not found
  • 500: Internal server error
• Message Body: The body of the response often contains the requested resource or relevant data. This data is typically formatted in JSON or XML for easy processing by the client.
• Headers: The response also includes headers that provide additional context about the data being sent, such as content type, length, and encoding.

Common Use Cases for RESTful APIs

RESTful APIs are widely used in various applications across different industries. Here are some common use cases:

• Web Services: Many modern web applications rely on RESTful APIs to fetch and manipulate data. For example, social media platforms provide APIs for developers to access user data, post updates, and interact with the platform programmatically.
• Mobile Applications: Mobile apps often use RESTful APIs to communicate with back-end servers, allowing users to access information, submit data, and perform actions seamlessly.
• IoT Devices: Internet of Things (IoT) devices can utilize RESTful APIs to send data to servers or receive commands, enabling real-time monitoring and control.
• E-Commerce: E-commerce platforms use RESTful APIs to manage product catalogs, handle orders, and process payments, creating a smooth shopping experience for users.
• Data Integration: Organizations often use RESTful APIs to integrate disparate systems, allowing for data exchange and collaboration between different applications.

Understanding the eFax API

The eFax API exemplifies how a RESTful API can be employed in a specific business context. By providing a robust interface for sending and receiving faxes over the internet, the eFax API eliminates the hassles associated with traditional faxing. Here’s how it operates:

• Client Request: A client application sends a request to the eFax API, specifying actions such as sending a fax or retrieving fax history.
• Authentication: The server verifies the client’s identity through methods like API keys or OAuth, ensuring secure access.
• Processing and Response: The server processes the request and sends a response that indicates whether the operation was successful, along with any relevant data.

The eFax Enterprise Fax API has two APIs, the Fax Services API and the Admin API.

The Fax Services API offers functionality for fax transmissions, including downloading fax images and metadata, utilizing webhooks for secure inbound and outbound fax notifications, deleting faxes, and retrieving lists of sent and received faxes with search parameters. The Admin API facilitates administration tasks for eFax Corporate® accounts, such as account provisioning and maintenance, number management, and managing authorizations for the Fax Services API.

Key Features of the eFax API

Our standards-based, RESTful fax API is designed for integration in high-volume production fax environments, especially for regulated industries where compliance and security come first.

• Integration: Fax directly from CRM, ERP, or EHR.
• Compliance: Complies with HIPAA, GLBA, SOX and other regulatory requirements, including GDPR.
• Security: The Fax API uses TLS 1.2 encryption for fax transmissions, and AES 256-bit encryption for fax storage.
• Advanced Auditing: The system maintains audit logs for all sent and received fax documents and files. View 20 different tracking and reporting metrics.
• Send and Receive Faxes: Clients can easily send and receive faxes directly from their applications through simple API calls.
• Fax Status Tracking: Users can monitor the status of sent faxes, including successful transmissions or issues encountered.
• Document Management: The Fax API allows for the secure management and storage of sent and received faxes, facilitating easy access and retrieval.
• Customizable Options: Users can set various parameters for sending faxes, such as cover pages and priority levels.

Benefits of Using the eFax API

Integrating the eFax API into business operations offers numerous advantages:

• Cost Efficiency: By eliminating the need for physical fax machines and supplies, businesses can significantly reduce operational costs.
• Automation: The Fax API enables automation of fax workflows, such as automatically sending invoices as faxes upon generation, enhancing overall efficiency.
• Integration: The Fax API can be seamlessly integrated with existing applications, such as EHR systems and document management platforms, streamlining processes and enhancing data flow.
• Accessibility: Users can send and receive faxes from anywhere with an internet connection, making it especially valuable for remote teams and businesses with multiple locations.
• Real-Time Tracking: The Fax API allows users to track fax statuses in real-time, providing immediate feedback on whether a fax has been successfully sent, delivered, or failed.

How to Get Started with the eFax API

Getting started with the eFax API involves five key steps:

1. Sign Up for an Account: Create an account with eFax to obtain your API credentials, including the necessary API key or OAuth tokens.
2. Review Documentation: Familiarize yourself with the API documentation, which provides detailed information on available endpoints, request formats, and response structures.
3. Integrate the Fax API: Use provided examples and SDKs to integrate the eFax API into your application, enabling programmatic fax capabilities.
4. Test Functionality: Conduct thorough testing to ensure that your implementation works as expected, including sending test faxes and checking status updates.
5. Deploy: Once testing is complete, deploy your application to production, allowing users to leverage the eFax capabilities.

How Can eFax Help with RESTful API Management?

eFax Corporate provides a robust RESTful fax API that streamlines faxing processes, significantly enhancing communication strategies. By integrating fax capabilities directly into existing software applications, the eFax API allows businesses to maintain workflows while adding powerful functionalities.

The eFax Enterprise Fax API offers integration with various applications, including CRM, ERP, and EHR systems and document management tools, ensuring uninterrupted operations. Security is a priority. The Fax API employs strong authentication and encryption protocols to protect sensitive information during transmission, crucial for industries handling confidential data.

With real-time tracking of fax statuses, users receive immediate feedback on sent documents, helping identify transmission issues quickly. The Fax API also supports automation, allowing businesses to send faxes based on specific triggers, reducing manual intervention and boosting productivity.

Cost efficiency is another significant benefit. By eliminating the need for physical fax machines and paper, organizations can lower operational expenses. eFax API’s scalable architecture accommodates growing demands without compromising performance.

Comprehensive documentation and support resources are available for developers, making it easy to implement and manage the Fax API effectively. 

Integrate the eFax Enterprise Fax API into your software and start building today.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

Secure communication is mission-critical for organizations across the healthcare industry. Healthcare organizations must comply with stringent regulatory requirements like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to remove the risk of data loss and theft and limit the success of cybercrime.

Central to secure communication in healthcare are Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems, which are cost-efficient, offer rich flexibility and mobility features, and can sync with laptops, tablets, smartphones, other software applications, and traditional phone systems.  Complying with regulations means deploying secure communication processes and tools like HIPAA-compliant VoIP services. VoIP HIPAA compliant companies are better equipped to securely store patient data while enjoying better-connected systems.

What is HIPAA Compliant VoIP

HIPAA was introduced into American law in August 1996 to secure the transfer of healthcare information and protect personally identifiable information (PII) against fraud and theft. The regulation seeks to prevent healthcare providers from disclosing sensitive or protected data with anyone other than their patients without their consent. Companies that breach HIPAA regulations face significant penalties and even the risk of prison time.

HIPAA ensures organizations protect the privacy and security of patients’ electronic and physical data. It also includes data transmitted via voice calls, which makes HIPAA compliance critical to healthcare providers using VoIP systems.

VoIP, also referred to as IP telephony, is a technology that delivers voice communication over IP networks, most commonly the Internet, rather than traditional phone lines. Some VoIP services only work on computers or specialized VoIP phones; others enable users to use a conventional telephone connected to a VoIP adapter. A VoIP system converts a user’s voice into a digital signal, allowing it to be transmitted across the Internet. 

A HIPAA-compliant VoIP phone system meets the requirements set out by the regulation. This includes safeguarding patient data and complying with privacy and security rules around protecting PII. HIPAA compliance is critical across healthcare areas like:

Healthcare providers: All organizations that deliver healthcare services, including clinics, dentists, doctors’ surgeries and hospitals, must comply with HIPAA regulations.

Health plans: Any company that provides or pays for health coverage, such as health insurance firms and health maintenance organizations, is also bound by HIPAA rules.

Healthcare processors: HIPAA compliance is non-negotiable for any organization that processes healthcare data, such as claims processing. It’s also applicable to any organization with access to patient information, and organizations must provide secure communication channels for business associates, such as HIPAA-compliant VoIP.

Importance of HIPAA Compliance in VoIP Systems 

Traditional phone lines are often vulnerable to data loss and snooping, which can risk the exposure of confidential health data and patients’ protected health information (PHI). Protecting patient privacy is, therefore, paramount to organizations across the healthcare industry. A HIPAA compliant phone system is critical to ensuring this, helping companies comply with stringent regulations that safeguard sensitive medical data. 

A HIPAA compliant phone service for therapists and other medical professionals eliminates the risk of data loss by providing a secure tunnel for transmitting sensitive data. It helps healthcare providers by protecting data, safeguarding them from severe penalties and criminal action, and encouraging stronger patient relationships built around privacy and trust.

4 Benefits of Using HIPAA Compliant VoIP Solutions

HIPAA compliant VoIP solutions provide a wide range of benefits for healthcare organizations. The benefits include:

1. Enhanced Patient Privacy: A HIPAA compliant VoIP service ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive medical data. This minimizes the risk of data breaches and establishes patient trust. 
2. Avoiding Fines: Failing to comply with the rules set out by the HIPAA regulation can result in severe fines and the risk of prison time. Implementing a HIPAA VoIP system ensures healthcare providers establish the required security standards across their communication processes. It also protects practices and healthcare professionals against the risk of financial penalties. 
3. Improved Communication: One of the biggest benefits of a HIPAA-compliant VoIP service is it unlocks advanced communication tools. A HIPAA VoIP system provides secure call capabilities alongside additional features like secure file sharing, instant messaging and video conferencing. These secure communication tools make it easy for users to comply with HIPAA guidelines, ensuring seamless collaboration between healthcare providers’ employees and across their disparate branches, clinics and offices.
4. Loyalty and Reputation Boosts: Besides the risk of fines and prison sentences, failing HIPAA compliance also risks significant reputational damage. A HIPAA compliant VoIP solution demonstrates healthcare providers’ commitment to patient privacy, which in turn earns trust from existing users and can attract new patients to a practice. Trust is critical to success in the healthcare industry, so a secure VoIP HIPAA compliant service can set a provider apart from its competitors.

4 Critical HIPAA Requirements for Secure VoIP Communication

HIPAA-compliant VoIP services help healthcare providers comply with the regulation’s Privacy Rule and Security Rule. The Privacy Rule governs how healthcare providers can use and disclose PHI and emphasizes patient control over their health data. Healthcare providers must gain written authorization from patients before they use or disclose PHI.

The Security Rule ensures healthcare providers safeguard electronic PHI (ePHI). Under the rule, providers must ensure robust security measures are in place to protect ePHI from unauthorized access, destruction, disclosure, disruption, modification and use. The Security Rule also outlines four critical requirements under which providers must protect ePHI during VoIP communication. 

1. Data Encryption: Any conversation occurring through VoIP systems, such as chat messaging and calls, that contains PHI must be encrypted through protocols like Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Encryption scrambles data so that any bad actor that intercepts data during transmission can’t make sense of it. As a result, it’s virtually impossible for unauthorized people to access sensitive data. 
2. Access Controls: Healthcare providers must ensure only authorized users can access sensitive data, such as PHI and VoIP systems. The Security Rule requires healthcare providers to utilize the principle of “need-to-know,” ensuring only employees responsible for patient care and treatment can access sensitive data. Additionally, multi-factor authentication provides an extra layer of security, requiring employees to prove their identity beyond simply using a password or code.
3. Audit Trails: Healthcare providers must maintain a detailed log of all communication through their HIPAA compliant VoIP systems. These audit trails must include data like call duration, the content of messages, the people and organizations involved in the communication and timestamps of conversations. Logging this data is crucial to detailed record-keeping, enabling providers to reconstruct communication history and identify potential security issues. 
4. Data Backup and Disaster Recovery: Health organizations must implement contingency plans to guarantee the availability and integrity of ePHI. This process is critical to protecting sensitive data in the event of system failures, natural disasters, and other emergencies that could leave systems vulnerable to hacking. It also includes regular data backups and restoring communications systems as quickly as possible.

How to Choose a HIPAA Compliant VoIP System?

Healthcare communications typically involve the use of highly sensitive patient data. So using a reliable, robust and secure HIPAA compliant VoIP system is critical to protecting this information. Leading HIPAA-compliant VoIP providers offer solutions explicitly designed to meet the needs of healthcare providers. It’s therefore vital to research the market and identify providers that offer the following: 

Business Associate Agreement: A Business Associate Agreement (BAA) provides a legally binding contract between healthcare organizations and their technology providers, such as VoIP providers. The BAA outlines each party’s responsibility around the privacy and security of PHI, so it’s vital to ensure the VoIP provider offers a BAA that aligns with your organization’s requirements. 

Security Features: Considering the importance of protecting PHI and patient data, it’s critical only to consider VoIP providers that offer robust security features. More specifically, your chosen VoIP provider must also have security features tailored to HIPAA compliance. 

Compliance Expertise: In addition to security features, it’s also vital to only work with VoIP providers with expertise and experience working with healthcare organizations. The VoIP provider must have deep knowledge of the best practices and latest regulations affecting healthcare firms and the tools and processes they require to guarantee HIPAA compliance. 

Customer Support: Healthcare providers must select VoIP providers that offer reliable and responsive customer support. Look for providers with a dedicated support team that can solve any issues you have, answer any employee questions, and demonstrate knowledge of HIPAA compliance and their tool’s functionality regarding the regulation. 

Flexibility and Scalability: Your current communications requirements will unlikely remain the same in the next 12 months and beyond. Therefore, you need a VoIP provider that’s flexible enough to align with your evolving needs and has the technological capabilities to scale as your business grows. It’s also important to consider how well the VoIP tool will integrate with your existing infrastructure and solutions and whether its implementation may cause any functionality and compliance problems.

Costs: Cost is a factor in any technology solution decision. However, cost shouldn’t be prioritized over privacy and security when implementing the best HIPAA compliant VoIP solution. The likelihood is that cheaper VoIP products are less likely to be HIPAA compliant, which could cost your business more in fines and reputational damage in the long run. So think carefully before prioritizing the cost of a HIPAA compliant VoIP.

Reputation: Selecting a HIPAA compliant phone system is critical to maintaining data security and protecting patient data. Therefore, your chosen HIPAA compliant VoIP provider’s reputation must be a key priority. Ensure the provider has a track history of working with reputable healthcare providers and avoid solutions marketed for general business use, which may not provide the required level of privacy security controls.

eFax Protect and HIPAA Compliant VoIP: A Perfect Pair for Protected Healthcare Communication

eFax Protect, our leading enterprise cloud fax solution, enables healthcare providers to seamlessly integrate their fax and VoIP communications to ensure HIPAA compliance. Aligning our online fax services with HIPAA compliant VoIP solutions enables healthcare organizations to protect all patient data and enhance the overall efficiency and security of their communications processes.

eFax is transforming fax capabilities by enhancing productivity and building data ecosystems that expand as healthcare organizations’ needs grow and evolve. The benefits of eFax include:

Enterprise-Level Security: eFax Protect’s online fax solutions rely on multiple layers of encryption, including 256-bit AES, TLS and SSL protocols, to secure fax communication when data is at rest and in transit. Additional security features like access control and authentication make eFax crucial for organizations in the highly regulated healthcare industry. This enterprise-grade security is why over half of Fortune 500 companies choose eFax’s online fax services.

Clear Audit Trails: eFax Protect easily integrates with third-party storage solutions and other technology, such as VoIP tools. Using eFax, healthcare organizations can guarantee their files are where they need them and when they need them and only authorized employees can access data.

Cost Control: eFax Protect’s flexible plans and feature-rich platform enable healthcare providers to enjoy efficient and seamless faxing without paying over the odds. eFax’s online faxing services eliminate the need for cumbersome, expensive fax machines, which must also be maintained and topped up with supplies of ink, paper and toner. Our service also eliminates hidden fees and unexpected charges, providing transparency to ensure budget-friendly experiences.

Flexibility: eFax Protect is designed to seamlessly integrate with multiple systems and applications, allowing seamless faxing on any platform. This provides healthcare organizations with the flexibility to enhance their communication processes. For example, many file-sharing providers limit the size of documents that users can send, but eFax provides a simple and efficient solution for sharing large files. eFax also enables users to send and receive faxes directly from their email inbox and on any device, from laptops to smartphones and tablets, helping businesses to streamline their communications. 

Making the Right Choice for HIPAA Compliant VoIP

Healthcare providers must make the right choice when implementing new technology solutions, including selecting a HIPAA compliant VoIP. Working with a HIPAA compliant VoIP provider can be the difference between secure communications processes that protect patient information at all times and suffering costly and damaging data loss and cybercrime incidents.

It’s therefore crucial for healthcare providers to proactively evaluate HIPAA-compliant VoIP providers before committing to a product. Integrating a VoIP solution with eFax’s industry-leading online fax capabilities helps organizations safeguard their data when it’s in rest on various storage platforms and when being shared with trusted patients and colleagues.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

(and What to do About it)

As the world’s leading provider of cloud fax services for midsized to large businesses, we receive a lot of questions from IT professionals about faxing and VoIP. “Can we fax over a VoIP line?” many ask us.  Because most of these companies have already migrated to a VoIP infrastructure (which we have written about in previous blog posts) for their voice communications, they are obviously hoping we’ll say yes.

But not before we offer them some serious warnings.

“You can try, and it may work just fine,” we would say.  “But it might not work consistently, meaning some faxes may go through but not others, especially longer ones more than a few pages. Or you may be able to send faxes but not receive, or visa versa.”  

In fact, faxing over VoIP can be so problematic that many VoIP service providers recommend keeping a plain old telephone service (POTS) line or two just to be on the safe side with analog applications like fax, postage machines and alarm systems, not to mention as a backup for when the VoIP network goes down, which it invariably will from time to time.  That advice gets the provider off the hook when problems pop up and brings in additional revenue, as traditional business phone lines typically cost over $50/month.

Can You Fax Over VoIP?

Technically speaking, yes, a business can send and receive faxes over a VoIP network. But the more you know about VoIP, the less confident you will be entrusting it with your company’s important fax transmissions, especially if you are doing a high volume of faxing.

And in case you aren’t familiar with VoIP, here’s a very brief overview of what it is and how it works.

What is VoIP?

VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a communication technique used for sending voice over what used to data-only networks.  Rather than transmitting a conversation over the traditional circuit-based telephone network, VoIP takes the sounds in your phone call — the voices of the speakers and any background noises — and converts all of that into a series of data packets.  These packets are like envelopes containing the bits that comprise the voice call.  

The VoIP packets travel across your local area network (LAN) and/or wide area network (WAN), and may also be sent across the Internet, mixed in with many other packets containing email messages, word documents, spreadsheets, images, etc. At the receiving end, the voice packets are separated from the other ‘data’ packets and reassembled to recreate the words that were just spoken.  

Naturally this all has to happen very fast, in a fraction of a second, so VoIP packets are considered to be very time-sensitive; if a packet containing a snippet of a word is delayed or arrives out of order, it is useless and must be discarded.  That leads to the occasional blips and dropouts that one hears in VoIP phone calls, especially if they happen to travel over the public Internet where network congestion can cause packets to be delayed or lost along the way.

Converting voice to packets using VoIP technology makes sense for several reasons, but the first advantage is the tremendous cost savings that can be achieved by converging multiple types of business communications, that used to require multiple dedicated networks, over a single connection.

A related benefit is compression to reduce the amount of bandwidth required for phone calls. VoIP doesn’t just convert analog voice calls into digital format — the technology can compress that data considerably. A typical phone call, when it is digitized, requires 64kilobits per second (kbps) of bandwidth per call.

VoIP services, using compression protocols, can squeeze the number of bits in a voice call down to as little as 32, 16, 8 or even 4kbps (with corresponding reductions in sound quality), before sending that call across the Internet. For a large company or call center, whose employees make hundreds or even thousands of calls a day, this adds up to considerable savings.

But here’s the problem. While many forms of data can handle and even benefit from compression — including voice, documents and video — the analog fax tones cannot be compressed.

And this is where fax’s problems with VoIP begin.

How Fax Works In A VoIP Environment — And Why It Can Fail To Work…

Problem #1: Bandwidth and Compression Issues

Unlike voice calls, fax transmissions can’t be compressed. Fax data must be digitized and transmitted over IP at a full 64kbps — more than double the 32kbps or lower bandwidth of a typical compressed VoIP call. And that’s before accounting for IP packet overhead, which pushes bandwidth needs to about 88kbps — roughly 175% more than a VoIP call.

During peak usage or in large-scale faxing operations, this bandwidth demand can become a real bottleneck. It’s the same root cause for the common complaint about choppy or broken audio in VoIP calls. When other apps, devices or users are eating up bandwidth, VoIP traffic struggles to stay consistent. For online fax, that inconsistency can result in corrupted pages, filed transmissions or a silent failure.

Problem #2: Packet Loss, Delay and Jitter

In a VoIP environment, packets are broken down and travel independently across the network, and may arrive out of order, delayed or not at all. But fax is extremely sensitive to network conditions and any disruption can break synchronization between the machines. Even a 1% packet loss or a delay of more than two seconds can cause the transmission to fail entirely. 

These disruptions usually stem from the following common VoIP challenges:

• Jitter: The phenomenon where packets arrive at inconsistent intervals, causing fax tones to break.
• Dropped Packets: Similar to dropped calls — this problem is prevalent on congested or poorly configured networks.
• Network Congestion: Too many simultaneous tasks (streaming, large file transfers or multiple voice calls) lead to delays.
• Quality of Service (QoS) Misconfigurations: Without proper prioritization, VoIP and fax traffic compete with other applications.

Problem #3: Protocol and Compatibility Conflicts

VoIP often relies on codecs like G.729 that prioritize compression and voice clarity over fidelity, while fax machines use protocols like T.30, T.38 and G.711. The transition from one protocol to another, especially mid-transmission, often introduces gaps or delays in the analog tones that lead to synchronization issues between machines and the transmission fails. 

Even T.38 — often promoted as the standard for reliable fax over IP — comes with caveats. It only works if both endpoints and all intermediate networks fully support and implement it correctly. Unfortunately, many service providers either don’t support T.38 or implement it inconsistently, making cross-vendor communication unreliable. And if a T.38 fax must be transcoded mid-route (for example, over a non-compatible network), that introduces more latency and increases the chance of failure.

Fax Can’t Share the Information Highway

An intuitive way to understand the unique challenges that Internet Protocol creates for faxing is by thinking of a standard analog fax transmission as a presidential motorcade. Fax was designed to enjoy a dedicated and direct path from sender to recipient.  On the old telephone network, fax traveled over a dedicated circuit it didn’t have to share with anybody.  Returning to our motorcade analogy, this is where all cross-traffic is blocked to keep the motorcade’s speed high and consistent, and in which all of the cars in the motorcade can remain in their original sequence for the entire journey. Put simply, all lanes for the fax are cleared from start to finish so there is never any delay.

A VoIP or other IP-based network, on the other hand, was designed for complex and ever-changing traffic patterns — more like a 12-lane highway where a mixture of real-time and non-real time data packets (cars) are frenetically traversing the path and jumping in and out of lanes at all times. Some of these pieces of data share a lane for part of their journey; some data packets arrive in a different order than they were sent; still others might get re-routed or even stuck on the road for a few moments, forcing the finished data transmission to wait at the recipient’s end until they arrive and can be pieced back together in order.

Fax is a road-hog of a technology, not designed to share its lane with anyone else. So when confronted with delayed or dropped packets, fax simply shuts down.

Which is why we at eFax Corporate® explain to the IT professionals who ask us that, “yes, technically you can send or receive a business fax over a VoIP network — but doing so may create more problems for your organization than it solves.”

So What Can You Do About Fax After You’ve Migrated to an IP Environment

It’s tempting to look for a way to migrate your company’s legacy fax infrastructure to your new IP environment. After all, IP creates efficiencies, it helps your organization save money, and it can centralize many of the communications technologies that your IT department once had to manage and troubleshoot separately.

But if we’ve convinced you that fax won’t enjoy the many benefits of IP that your other data communications are enjoying, then the question is: What can you do to modernize, streamline and improve the efficiency of your legacy fax infrastructure?

The way we see it, you have seven options after migrating to a IP environment:

Move to a cloud fax model. By converting faxes into email attachments, cloud faxing eliminates dependency on fragile analog signals and VoIP infrastructure, like the cloud faxing solution from eFax Corporate. It streamlines faxing, increases reliability and empowers your team to send and receive secure faxes directly from their desktops — with full audit trails, encryption and compliance built in. For more about cloud fax, you can also download our free white paper: The IT Manager’s Survival Guide: Outsource Your Fax Infrastructure to the Cloud

Leave your existing fax infrastructure in place and continue to pay for dedicated telecom services. This is relatively safe as a short-term solution as it fails to address many of your existing issues with faxing and may create new ones of its own. For example, caring for an aging in-house fax infrastructure is costly, time-consuming and inefficient for your business.

Roll back to analog lines for every fax number. If you’ve already migrated to IP and now are experiencing faxing issues, you can revert to a fully onsite network of fax machines and servers, supported by analog or T1 lines. This might seem like a “safer” move, but it’s a costly step backward in terms of both innovation and operational efficiency.

Modernize your VoIP infrastructure to minimize interference with fax. If you must maintain some fax capabilities within your VoIP setup, you can optimize your network by implementing QoS (Quality of Service) settings that prioritize fax and VoIP traffic. Use VLANs to isolate fax transmissions from other network traffic. Upgrading your router, increasing bandwidth and installing jitter buffers can also reduce packet loss and call quality issues that impact fax reliability.

Segment and virtualize your VoIP network. Establishing a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) exclusively for VoIP and fax devices can significantly improve stability. It reduces network congestion and gives IT greater control over packet flow. Additionally, ensuring all hardware uses the same compatible codecs (like G.711) and disabling SIP ALG in routers can resolve one-way audio issues and improve transmission success rates for both voice and fax.

Partner with a unified communications provider that offers VoIP-optimized fax support. Look for partners that provide full T.38 support, offer proactive monitoring and can help you troubleshoot issues like jitter, latency and failed outbound transmissions. With 24/7 reliability, real-time support, and SLA-backed performance, a strong provider partnership can help you maintain business continuity without compromising on quality.

Wait for a standards-body solution that fixes fax-over-IP issues. It’s possible that one day, a new protocol will emerge to overcome packet loss, jitter and interoperability problems. But with existing standards like G.711, T.37, and T.38 still widely in use decades after their introduction, this may take time that your company’s current faxing doesn’t have.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

People sent sensitive data over public fax machines and stored documents on-site in unsecured filing cabinets for many years. And many of them did it without a care in the world.

So, it’s safe to say that a lot of sensitive data has been exposed to unauthorized people. And organizations that continue to use fax machines are putting proprietary information at risk every day and opening themselves up to significant financial losses.

However, things are shifting as new digital technologies take root. Today’s companies are increasingly aware of the security risks of sending sensitive information via fax.

That’s why you should move away from using traditional fax machines to send and receive sensitive data. Online fax solutions with built-in data encryption can solve these problems. With data encryption, you gain a much more secure way of transmitting and storing data than traditional faxing.

Table of Contents

• What Is Data Encryption?
• Why Is Data Encryption Important?
• How Data Security Helps You Build More Brand Trust
• Enhance Your Data Security with eFax

What Is Data Encryption?

Today, several major industries still prefer faxing information, including the government, health, financial services and manufacturing industries. Also, in large firms of 500 employees or more, over 80 percent of workers still use fax machines.

It would be wonderful if your intended recipient was the only person who could read your electronic data, wouldn’t it? That’s where data encryption comes in. It involves translating data into a different form or code so that only people with decryption or secret key can access and read the original message.

Online fax encryption technology works by scrambling any sensitive electronic so that it stays private. That makes it harder to tamper or steal. And if unauthorized third parties attempt to access your data, they’ll only see a nonsensical collection of characters and words. While they could try to make sense of it, that would be an impossible task without the data encryption key.

Another advantage of data encryption is that it keeps you compliant with several data protection laws. In the US, a mix of federal and state laws protect the personal data of residents, while the European Union (EU) has the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Law Enforcement Directive, among others.

Violating these regulations, even if those missteps are unintentional, can have far-reaching consequences for companies. That’s why data encryption technology is instrumental in keeping your company legally compliant with all state and federal data security laws governing your industry. Also, having data encryption in place can help you navigate legal and security minefields in other countries where you do business, thus protecting you against having to pay large non-compliance fees.

Why Is Data Encryption Important?

By 2020, there were 44 zettabytes of data in the entire digital world. That equates to 40 times more bytes of data than there are stars in the universe as we know it. Every digital action your company takes, collecting, saving or disseminating information, contributes to the global data byte count. That includes all the data you send and receive via fax.

Depending on the nature of your business, you may collect and house private information, such as Social Security numbers, email addresses and financial account information. What’s more, you may have insights into customers’ previous purchase history and saved shopping preferences stored in databases if you are in the retail or eCommerce space. If your work in healthcare, you may have medical or insurance information about patients in your data sets. No matter what your business does, you have stored data.

While all the information you gather can be vital to your operations, this data can include private or sensitive details about your clients. No one who does business with you would be happy to know their personal data has been exposed to unauthorized third parties. Unfortunately, cybercrime is on the rise as bad actors continually come up with new schemes to access personal and corporate data. No company is safe from the risk of cyberattacks today. It’s clear why data security should be a priority for your organization.

In fact, research shows that your clients expect you to safeguard their personal data at all times. For example, one study indicates that 87 percent of consumers would not do business with a company whose data security practices concern them. Also, research has uncovered that 78 percent of customers would stop doing business with a company that gives away their sensitive data.

You must take customer concerns about data privacy very seriously. How your company handles its data security can influence how customers perceive your business. Your goal is to present your company as an industry leader in data protection.

How can you do that? Encrypting sensitive data is a must. When you pledge to encrypt data, your customers gain the assurance that you will protect their data against unauthorized access.

A secure online fax service will use data encryption, thus enabling you to send and receive faxes confidently. That’s why partnering with a quality service provider is necessary to enhance your personal and business communication.

How Data Security Helps You Build More Brand Trust

Did you know that over 80 percent of customers prefer to buy products from brands they trust?  That’s why you should never underestimate the effect of brand trust in attracting and keeping customers.

Also, it’s worth noting that data privacy can make current and potential customers perceive you in a positive light. Case in point: 69 percent of consumers want brands to address the issue of personal data and how it is collected and used.

When you use cloud-based online fax encryption, you will improve your brand identity’s trustworthiness. At the same time, you will aggressively safeguard your electronic data and keep it safe from potential breaches. Also, your encryption technology makes it harder for third parties to invade your customers’ privacy.

Another advantage is that you can retain both original and backup digital fax copies for as long as you want. By doing so, you can enhance the accuracy of your business records and protect your business against anyone who wants to steal or tamper with information.

In addition, you will safeguard yourself from business record losses. And the good news is that cloud storage is compatible with PDF, Microsoft Office 365 files (examples include Microsoft Word and Excel documents) and other business document types.

Simply store or send your private files as secure faxes online, and data encryption technology will ensure they are kept safe and secure. The technology is effortless to use and can fit seamlessly into your team’s work routines.

Enhance Your Data Security with eFax

eFax is an internet-based fax technology that enables you to send and receive secure personal or business faxes from anywhere in the world using your smartphone, tablet or computer. You can use it via a mobile app, desktop app, email or a secure online portal on the web.

As an added benefit, you don’t need to invest in a dedicated fax machine to use eFax. You also will not require a multifunctional fax-enabled printer or an additional investment in a landline to send and receive faxes. Instead, all you need is an internet-enabled device and access to the web.

eFax is compatible with many types of business infrastructure, making it possible for them to integrate the cloud and advanced data encryption quickly. It utilizes secure socket layer (SSL) encryption within a secure server to optimize security when faxing, thus, protecting your business against dangerous data breaches which affect data integrity. You can safeguard internal company information along with your clients’ and partners’ data.

Another benefit of eFax is that there is no third-party human intervention to process your faxes. That means you won’t have to risk an unauthorized person gaining insight into your private financial or business data.

With the flexibility to use eFax on various devices, you can send and receive faxes wherever you are, on any device, 24/7. All you need is an internet-enabled device to send and receive your faxes, which you can then print later if the need arises. You’ll be able to conduct your business with speed and efficiency, giving you more opportunities to win business and excel at customer satisfaction.

The time is now to leave your outdated fax machine in the past and bring your communications into the 21st century. You can get started with eFax today and get the peace of mind that comes with knowing that your fax communications are always secure. In addition, you can achieve alignment with critical security and privacy laws to avoid any risk of non-compliance. Your client and partners will value your commitment to keeping their data secure, leading to greater loyalty and increased business opportunities.

If you need insight into the value eFax delivers to other organizations, you can read the many positive endorsements in our product reviews section.

Send and receive faxes in minutes. Start faxing now.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager