What do you think is the biggest impediment to successful transitions of care from hospitals to a skilled nursing facility (SNF)? If you said, “incomplete patient information,” you’re not alone.

While about 80% of SNFs have adopted electronic health records (EHR), true interoperability remains elusive, creating dangerous gaps in data sharing. A recent survey of 471 hospital-SNF pairs found that key information about a patient’s behavioral status is missing from care transitions 68% of the time, while insights into a patient’s social status are omitted 66% of the time. Every missing or delayed piece of information threatens patient safety, hinders outcomes, and frustrates staff.

To close the gaps, many SNF IT leaders are shifting their focus away from clinical documentation solutions toward nursing home software that can enhance communication with their acute care partners. Let’s zoom in on this trend and explore how solutions like eFax Unite™ can strengthen care coordination compliantly without requiring a full system replacement.

Core Software Needs in Skilled Nursing Facilities

Improving data sharing through upgraded software is a strategic imperative for both SNF executives and their acute care partners. Nearly all (99%) hospitals and physicians say they’re more likely to send referrals to providers who can receive orders electronically. Simultaneously, 79% of SNFs plan to invest more in advanced interoperability in the future. Here are three reasons why:

1. A Heightened Focus on Care Coordination

Unlike hospitals and clinics, post-acute care providers were left out of early federal EHR and interoperability incentive programs, leaving nursing homes playing catchup on adoption. As more SNFs brought EHRs online, most focused their efforts on clinical documentation, often at the expense of care coordination. As a result, care transitions today remain fractured. Most SNFs rely on outdated workflows like paper fax, email, and manual data entry.

To close the gap, nursing homes need access to accurate, real-time data to prevent problems with medication errors and duplicate testing. Strong interoperability can make this happen, ensuring the entire care team — providers, nurses, and therapists —receives the vital data they need.

2. Regulatory Shifts

Regulatory changes are adding new urgency to care coordination efforts. The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. TEFCA has created Qualified Health Information Networks (QHIN) to facilitate the secure, nationwide exchange of health information. SNFs that adopt interoperable solutions and become TEFCA-ready will be able to receive and send information to acute and ambulatory providers participating with CommonWell Health Alliance and other QHINs.

Post-acute facilities must also comply with the Final Rule of the 21st Century Cures Act, which requires providers to enable data sharing and establishes fines up to $1 million for information blocking. And, of course, all data must be shared securely to meet the intent of protected health information (PHI) safeguards like HIPAA.

3. Staffing Challenges

Research links heavy clinical documentation burdens to higher rates of burnout for highly trained SNF staff, including nurses and administrative colleagues. The root of the problem is manual processes, such as making follow-up phone calls or re-keying data from hospital discharge paperwork into multiple documents. Rote tasks like these cost the average care team four hours of staff time per week, while lengthy clinical documentation consumes 26% to 41% of nurses’ time.

Seamless data transfer frees up staff to focus on what they love to do: care for patients, thereby improving staff satisfaction and retention. It also empowers post-acute care facilities to communicate with multiple partners, including pharmacies, laboratories, and health information exchanges (HIEs).

Key Considerations When Selecting Skilled Nursing Software

For SNF IT leaders looking to improve care transitions and communication, it’s time to rethink the software evaluation process. Today’s top must-haves include care coordination tools that improve interoperability and integrate with existing systems, along with solutions that fit the staffing and budget realities of nursing homes. Here are four key questions to ask potential solution providers:

Will The Solution Improve Interoperability and External Communication?  

Applications that support industry-standard protocols like HL7 and FHIR ensure that nursing home staff can exchange referrals, treatment orders, problem lists, and other information fluently. Additionally, solutions that use frameworks like DirectTrust — a set of policies established by HITRUST — facilitate securely sending direct messages, such as transfer notices and bed availability confirmations, to other providers. Another must-have is software built around the Carequality interoperability framework, which lets staff query EHRs and HIEs effortlessly.

Does The Solution Integrate With EHRs in Nursing Homes?

Replacing a nursing home EHR is expensive, complex, and time-consuming, which is why most SNF leaders want to add interoperability while maintaining their existing EHR. Solutions built with application programming interfaces (APIs) make this happen. APIs connect effortlessly with multiple EHRs and other core systems. But EHR integration is just the start. A best-in-class solution provider should also be familiar with SNFs and the workflows that nurses, CNAs, rehab nurses, administrative staff, and providers use on a daily basis and know how to automate them. The goal is to find software that will complement existing workflows, not disrupt them.

Can I Trust That The Solution is Secure and HIPAA-Compliant?

As SNFs open up their data exchange networks, they will inevitably interact with more organizations and providers. And while that’s a good thing in terms of care coordination, it can also increase the risk of data hacks and breaches. Nursing home IT teams can protect their systems — and their patients’ data — by choosing HIPAA-compliant solutions that follow the HITRUST CSF framework, the gold standard in healthcare cybersecurity. Top solutions will also keep data secure when it’s at rest with AES 256-bit encryption and in transit with TLS 1.2 encryption. Also, insist on platforms that provide role-based access control and audit trails for tracking purposes.

What Kind of ROI Can I Expect?

All interoperability software will include upfront costs, but the best solutions will pay for themselves by improving workplace efficiency and staff satisfaction. Seek solutions that automate multiple steps in the transfer process, such as pulling data automatically from hospital or rehab systems to streamline care coordination and reduce staff burdens. The more powerful the automated workflow, the more time colleagues can spend with patients — and the less time they’ll spend standing by the physical fax machine or sitting at a keyboard.

Improve Transitions of Care With eFax Unite

Transitions of care are the most vulnerable part of a patient’s journey, but they don’t have to be. eFax Unite offers a practical and fully interoperable solution. eFax Unite replaces physical fax machines with digital faxing capabilities and breaks down communication barriers while fitting into existing nursing home workflows.

With eFax Unite, SNFs can:

• Exchange data securely across systems. eFax Unite connects SNFs to communication exchanges, including statewide HIEs, referral networks, and the providers within those networks. SNF staff can send patient info queries effortlessly through Carequality thanks to built-in connections with CommonWell Health Alliance, ACOS and other data exchange networks.
• Meet regulatory mandates. eFax Unite is HIPAA-compliant and HITRUST CSF certified, using the DirectTrust framework to support Direct Secure Messaging while also securing active and stored data using AES 256 bit and TLS 1.2 encryption. Plus, eFax Unite maintains full audit trails for every patient record sent or received for the duration of a customer’s account.
• Improve care handoffs and care quality. SNFs can receive discharge summaries, medication lists, and referrals electronically, and automatically route them to the right team members. With more complete and accurate data at intake, nursing homes can admit patients faster and reduce the risk of hospital readmissions.
• Maximize existing investments. eFax Unite allows providers and staff to continue using the tools they trust the most. RESTful APIs provide plug-and-play integration with a nursing home’s EHR, ERP, CRM, and other core platforms. eFax Unite can even integrate with older legacy systems.

Perhaps best of all, as part of Consensus Cloud Solutions’ eFax Corporate® platform, eFax Unite automates core communications workflows, helping staff save time and focus more on resident care.

Make the Most of eFax Unite

Because eFax Unite is cloud-based, SNFs can get up and running with it quickly. These tips can make the implementation and optimization phases even easier:

• Map existing workflows. Detail the process for how data enters the nursing home right now, then work with your vendor to configure the solution and streamline existing workflows.
• Provide role-based training. Start with roles directly involved in care transitions, including nurse managers and care managers. Once they’ve become experts with the software, ask them to help train other colleagues.
• Gather and apply user feedback. Ask early adopters to create a list of the features that bring the biggest benefits, then prioritize rolling out those features house-wide.
• Measure the ROI. Use audit data to track metrics like time-to-admit or total percent of patient information collected at intake.

With the right rollout strategy, eFax Unite can become the foundation of a scalable, compliant interoperability solution—inside and beyond your facility’s walls.

Deliver on the Promise of SNF Interoperability

Care coordination inside SNFs has taken a back seat to clinical documentation for far too long. With solutions like eFax Unite, nursing homes can achieve higher levels of interoperability and save staff up to 70% of their time. 
Learn more. Explore eFax Unite for skilled nursing facilities.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

Many skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) still rely on manual workflows, and they cost more than you think.

The reason for using these processes isn’t resistance to change. Instead, it’s a lack of interoperability. Even though 8 in 10 post-acute facilities use electronic health records (EHRs) regularly, data sharing remains a challenge. When EHRs don’t connect across care settings, staff are left to bridge the gaps with paper forms and physical fax machines. 

But how much time does staff spend chasing down paperwork, and what happens when patient data arrives at an SNF too late? Let’s add up the costs of manual workflows and explore how post-acute care organizations can fix the problem without overhauling their EHR.

The True Costs of Manual Workflows in Skilled Nursing

Paper-based processes may seem familiar and manageable, but they also create a ripple effect of inefficiency. Here’s where those impacts show up the most.

Less Time for Patients

Every hour spent on repetitive, non-clinical tasks — calling referring providers, sending paper faxes, and entering data into multiple systems and portals — saps staff morale and creates added stress. It also diverts attention from doing what your staff does best: delivering care to nursing home residents. Nurses, in particular, feel the brunt, spending between 19% to 35% of each shift on clinical documentation. 

What’s the cost? Consider one estimate that says inefficient toggling between systems can consume as many as four hours per week for all skilled nursing staffers. Take that number and multiply it by the average hourly rate for a nursing home employee ($29/hour). Then multiply that number across an SNF facility with 100 employees, and it equates to $46,000 a month in lost time alone.

Staff Burnout

Repetitive administrative tasks are fueling the burnout crisis nursing homes face today. When staff can’t do the work they’re trained to do, they head for the exits. This unfortunate reality has led to an 82% staff turnover rate industry-wide, with more than half of nursing homes replacing 50% of their staff annually.

High turnover creates huge expenses. To see why, take the example of a nursing home with 12 full-time RNs. Let’s say the facility experiences a 50% RN turnover rate. Based on an estimated turnover cost of more than $40,000 per bedside nurse, the nursing home will spend at least $240,000 to replace those six nurses alone. That doesn’t include the added expenses of replacing other skilled workers, such as Certified Nursing Assistants and Licensed Practical Nurses.

Compliance Challenges

Manually faxed patient records are more likely to be lost or misplaced, increasing the risk of noncompliance with regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Just one HIPAA violation can cost a post-acute provider anywhere between $100 to $50,000. Serious violations, however, can cost even more. Take the recent case of a mental health center in California that received a $100,000 civil monetary penalty for failing to provide a patient with timely access to her medical records.

Compliance isn’t limited only to HIPAA. Rules like the 21st Century Cures Act prohibit information blocking, defined as any action that “interferes with the ability of authorized persons or entities to access, exchange, or use electronic health information.” SNFs lacking robust interoperability capabilities may be at risk for information-blocking penalties if they fail to share electronic healthcare information with their care partners as needed. Any facility found in violation faces fines of up to $1 million per penalty.

Care Quality and Star Ratings

The quality of patient care inside an SNF is tied directly to information sharing. When patient records arrive late — or if they’re illegible on a paper fax and require follow-up — it raises the odds of preventable medication errors, patient falls, and hospital readmissions.

Research shows that these kinds of information gaps are widespread, especially during care transitions. A study of 471 hospital-SNF pairs revealed that 76% of shared healthcare information had at least one usability shortcoming, including:

• Missing information about a patient’s behavioral status (68% of the time)
• Missing information about a patient’s social status (66% of the time)
• Information arriving after the patient either sometimes (34%) or often (16%)

Any lapse in quality impacts an SNF’s Star Ratings. Compiled by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Star Ratings are based on a post-acute organization’s compliance with key quality measures, staffing ratings, and health inspection ratings. When quality care suffers, ratings fall, and a one-star drop can cost an organization hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost referrals, reimbursements, and contracts.

Value-Based Care Barriers

Emerging value-based care models depend on timely, accurate information sharing, something paper processes and standalone fax machines can’t support. Just one example: In early 2026, CMS will roll out Transforming Episode Accountability Models (TEAM), making 700-plus hospitals accountable for the cost and quality of Medicare patients undergoing procedures such as spinal fusion and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

To prepare, hospitals are already forming high-value networks with select post-acute care partners. SNFs that can share data securely will be highly sought-after collaborators.

“Strong SNF partnerships are essential to the TEAM concept,” Robin Roberts, Director of Health IT Regulatory Affairs at PointClickCare, recently told Modern Healthcare. “Hospitals will seek partners who can help them deliver high-quality care at moderate or lower costs while reducing the risk of hospital readmissions.” Post-acute facilities that don’t address their interoperability challenges now will miss out on these essential collaborations.

Adding Up the Hidden Costs

The multiple costs of paper-based processes snowball quickly. At a bare minimum, SNFs lose tens of thousands of dollars in staff time a month. Add in the expenses related to replacing burned-out staff and paying even the smallest of compliance fines, and the costs are well into the six figures. And if your facility suffers a drop in CMS Star Ratings or incurs serious penalties, the financial costs could reach into the millions — not to mention the associated reputational damage.

Interoperability may not eliminate all of these expenses, but it will go a long way toward alleviating financial strain and improving quality of care. When staff can send and receive patient records without manually keying entries into EHR fields or multiple portals, it reduces their workloads, leading to less stress and more time spent with their patients. PHI remains secure at all times, reducing the risk of noncompliance. And quality care improves, enhancing CMS Star Ratings and positioning your SNF as a reliable communication partner in care transitions, making you a more attractive collaborator for hospitals operating under value-based models.

Step Toward Interoperability Without Breaking Your EHR

Your EHR represents one of your SNF’s biggest investments. That’s why the path to greater interoperability starts with practical solutions that will integrate with your EHR, saving you from costly system replacements.

eFax Unite™ works with the systems you already have to reduce paper-based workflows, improve communications with referral partners, and create better transitions of care. Instead of using five or more different portals, eFax Unite gives skilled nursing staff a centralized, easy-to-use inbox. Staff can send electronic faxes, Direct Secure Messages, and referrals to anyone within their healthcare ecosystem.

EHR integration removes multiple steps in traditional paper-based and physical fax workflows. eFax Unite turns unstructured demographic data into a structured document, then attaches it to the correct patient record in the EHR automatically. Staff can use the platform to search for other patient data in Carequality and CommonWell Health Alliance, creating more complete patient records. 

As a HIPAA-compliant and HITRUST CSF-certified solution, eFax Unite helps eliminate the risk of compliance lapses. And because eFax Unite closes communication gaps, it helps SNFs meet the data-sharing expectations of value-based programs and alternative payment methods.

Stop the Reliance on Manual Workflows

The high costs of manual processes aren’t sustainable, and neither are the risks to patient care. That’s why it’s time for SNFs to enhance interoperability with their care partners and get the most from their EHR investment.

Wondering where to begin? Get a few practical tips in this white paper: “Beyond Adoption: Making EHRs Work for Skilled Nursing Facilities.” Ready to explore how eFax Unite could help your SNF staff spend less time on paperwork and more time on patient care?

Request a Demo.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

A 78-year-old Medicare patient is discharged from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) after hip surgery. The hospital’s electronic health record (EHR) system contains detailed notes about her new medication regimen, her mobility restrictions, and a pending cardiac consultation. 

But when she arrives at the SNF two hours later, her care team receives a 47-page fax, half-illegible and missing key sections. Buried somewhere in the pile is a critical medication change that could prevent a dangerous drug interaction.

This hypothetical scenario plays out daily across America’s 15,000 skilled nursing facilities. Despite the fact that a 2023 HHS report suggests roughly 80% of SNFs use EHRs, they remain largely disconnected from the broader healthcare ecosystem. While hospitals and physician practices have spent the last decade building sophisticated data highways, SNFs are still navigating dirt roads, relying on fax machines, phone calls, and manual data entry to coordinate care for some of our most vulnerable patients.

How did we get here? More importantly, what can SNFs do today to bridge this dangerous gap without waiting for another decade of policy changes or replacing their entire technology infrastructure? 

The Policy Gap That Created Today’s Crisis

The HITECH Act in 2009 pumped $35 billion into digitizing American healthcare. Hospitals and physician practices received generous incentives to adopt EHRs and demonstrate “meaningful use.” The vision was a seamlessly connected healthcare ecosystem.

But skilled nursing facilities were left out entirely.

Long-term and post-acute care providers, including SNFs, were excluded from federal EHR incentive programs. They weren’t “eligible providers” under Meaningful Use, meaning no financial incentives, no mandates, no policy pressure to build interoperable systems. 

The ripple effects were profound. Without external incentives or funding, SNFs did what they could afford: they bought EHRs for internal operations, such as documentation, billing, and compliance, but couldn’t justify investing in interoperability infrastructure their hospital partners were building with federal dollars.

Today’s numbers reveal this two-track evolution. The 80% of SNFs now using electronic health records matches primary care adoption rates. This looks like success, but adoption isn’t connection. Despite high EHR use, interoperable data exchange remains rare in SNFs. Key capabilities remain frustratingly low:

• Finding: SNFs can’t electronically query external health records.
• Sending: Clinical data still travels by fax instead of secure electronic exchange.
• Integrating: Outside information requires manual re-entry rather than flowing directly into EHRs.

When hospitals discharge patients to SNFs, information travels by fax, not secure electronic exchange, even when both facilities have sophisticated EHRs. Operating on thin margins with limited IT resources, SNFs struggle to optimize existing systems, let alone invest in interoperability. Few have budgets for training, IT staff, or workflow redesign. Data stays siloed within each SNF’s system.

The result is a healthcare system where acute care providers speak digital fluently while SNFs translate between incompatible systems using fax machines. More than a decade after HITECH, this policy exclusion has created a care coordination crisis affecting millions of Americans each year.

The Human Cost of Disconnected Systems

The most recent data available shows that nearly one in four patients transferred from hospitals to SNFs will be readmitted, significantly higher than the 17% overall Medicare readmission rate. Behind each readmission often lies a preventable communication failure.

A national survey of 471 SNF-hospital pairs revealed the scope of the problem. Key patient information routinely goes missing during transitions: functional status, mental/behavioral assessments, and even basic contact information for hospital clinicians. When information does arrive, it’s often too late, landing after the patient has already been admitted. Even then, discharge documents are frequently difficult to use, buried in duplicative content that staff must manually sift through.

Here’s what SNF staff experience daily:

• Inaccurate or untimely communication, leading to preventable adverse events during care transitions.
• Missing medication lists, leading to dangerous drug interactions.
• Absent lab results, delaying critical treatments.
• Incomplete advance directives, resulting in care that contradicts patient wishes.

Consider the complexity: SNF patients aren’t just recovering from single procedures. They’re often managing multiple chronic conditions, recovering from major surgeries, and taking numerous medications. When a crucial detail — a dosage change, an allergy, baseline cognitive status — doesn’t make the journey from hospital to SNF, the consequences compound quickly.

Poor data exchange across settings leads directly to lower-quality care, increased errors, and avoidable readmissions. These aren’t just IT problems — they’re human problems affecting vulnerable patients at their most vulnerable moments.

The Hidden Burden on SNF Staff

In 2021, about 70% of healthcare providers still used paper faxes to exchange medical information — and SNFs are among the most fax dependent. Each faxed document arrives as unstructured data that must be printed, scanned, filed, or manually keyed into the EHR. If hospitals use secure web portals for referrals, SNF staff must log into multiple separate systems and then retype or print the information rather than having it flow directly into their charts.

These burdens impact both patients and healthcare workers. A 2016 study found that for every hour a physician spends with a patient, they have two hours of administrative tasks. This is time spent chasing information, leaving voicemails for other clinicians, checking fax machines, and navigating redundant portals. Every hour consumed by administrative tasks is an hour stolen from direct patient care.

Manual processes also impact operations. Rekeying data from faxes introduces typos and errors that propagate through patient records. Staff must double-check everything, adding reconciliation tasks to already overwhelming workloads. Up to 30% of the nation’s total healthcare spend goes to administrative tasks like data entry and paperwork — a particularly painful statistic for SNFs operating on razor-thin margins.

The compliance risks are equally serious. Aging fax systems and manual workflows create multiple HIPAA vulnerabilities:

Traditional fax machine vulnerabilities

• Misdialed numbers sending PHI to the wrong recipients
• Papers left on machines exposing patient information
• Unattended documents accessible to unauthorized staff
• No encryption or access controls

Dangerous staff workarounds when systems fail

• Staff using personal email or texting for patient data
• Shared passwords for multiple portal logins
• Printed records left unsecured on desks
• Violation of privacy rules through informal communication channels

For SNF staff already stretched thin, the burden of maintaining these broken systems while ensuring compliance and quality care has become unsustainable.

Why “Rip and Replace” Isn’t the Answer

The typical SNF operates on limited budgets and slim margins, making wholesale EHR replacement impractical. Unlike large hospital systems with dedicated IT departments and capital budgets, many SNFs cannot afford the high costs of purchasing and implementing new systems. An EHR transition involves not only licensing fees but also data migration, configuration, training, and potential billing disruptions — expenses that are prohibitive for resource-strapped facilities.

The operational risks are equally daunting:

• Workflow disruptions in 24/7 care environments that can’t afford downtime
• Productivity losses from staff learning curves that hurt documentation accuracy
• Regulatory compliance gaps during transitions when continuous requirements must still be met
• Limited IT expertise on-site to manage complex system overhauls
• Training resource shortages that make even basic optimization challenging

There’s also the issue of specialized functionality. SNFs use EHR platforms tailored to post-acute workflows supporting MDS assessments, care plans, and PDPM billing. Switching to a hospital-focused EHR might sacrifice critical long-term care functionalities or require costly customization. Some SNFs are part of larger chains mandating particular EHRs, further limiting choices.

“Rip and replace” is too costly and risky for most SNFs. Instead, the industry consensus has shifted to layering interoperability solutions on top of existing EHRs to bridge gaps to meet SNFs where they are rather than demanding they start over.

Making Existing Systems Work Together

Interoperability in SNFs requires additive solutions that don’t disrupt current systems. The most practical approach: modern cloud platforms that bridge disconnected systems while preserving existing workflows.

eFax Unite™ exemplifies this strategy. The platform centralizes fax, Direct secure messaging, and HIE networks (Carequality/CommonWell under TEFCA). Staff use familiar interfaces while the platform manages the technical complexity: delivering Direct messages to hospital EHRs, querying HIE networks, routing structured documents into the SNF’s system. Instead of juggling five hospital portals, staff have one workflow for all communications.

Modern platforms leverage AI and OCR to transform tedious tasks. Incoming faxes such as labs, referrals, and discharge summaries are automatically parsed for demographics, medications, and diagnoses, then converted into structured CDA/CCD files. This eliminates manual data entry and ensures information lands in the right patient record instantly.  These platforms also provide encryption, access controls, and full audit trails and ensure HIPAA-compliant sharing through direct messaging and standardized APIs, replacing the vulnerabilities of legacy fax.

Platforms like eFax Unite solve today’s problems with tools that work with existing systems while building toward tomorrow’s fully connected ecosystem.

Bridge the Gap Today

While policymakers debate long-term solutions and industry standards evolve, SNF patients and staff can’t afford to wait.

The good news: You don’t have to. Solutions like eFax Unite offer a practical bridge between today’s fragmented reality and tomorrow’s connected healthcare ecosystem. By working with your existing systems rather than replacing them, these platforms deliver immediate improvements in care coordination, staff efficiency, and compliance readiness.

Every day of delay means more preventable readmissions, more burned-out nurses, more compliance risks. But every SNF that takes action today becomes part of the solution — proving that post-acute care facilities can lead rather than lag in healthcare’s digital transformation.

Ready to stop waiting and start connecting?
Learn how eFax Unite can bridge your interoperability gap without disrupting your operations. See how other SNFs are already transforming their care transitions and reducing readmissions. Request a demo of eFax Unite →

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

Upon a patient’s discharge from a hospital, the care team faxed a 40-page transition-of-care document to the patient’s cardiologist. But the fax sat in a bin inside the cardiologist’s office for three days before being manually entered into the provider’s electronic health record (EHR). During that time, no one realized that the patient had been prescribed a new high-risk medication, creating a potentially dangerous gap in care.

This hypothetical scenario reflects care coordination breakdowns that can happen due to disconnected technology and manual processes. Let’s review how your healthcare organization can reduce these risks and improve patient outcomes with solutions that integrate with your EHR and create automated workflows.

What is Care Coordination?

Care coordination involves organizing care throughout each step of a patient’s journey. All patients can benefit from highly coordinated care, but it’s especially important for people with complex health conditions. A patient with diabetes, for example, may see multiple providers for ongoing care, including:

• A primary care doctor for their general health
• An endocrinologist for diabetes management
• A podiatrist for foot ulcer treatment
• A nutritionist for meal planning guidance

Sharing information securely among providers improves health outcomes. Results from a recent study show that heart failure patients receiving higher levels of care coordination had 10% lower odds of readmission, 17% lower risk of mortality, and a 16% reduction in overall healthcare costs.

When care coordination is fragmented, however, it leads to redundant testing, delayed diagnoses, and potential medication errors, raising healthcare costs and eroding the quality of care. 

Common Challenges With Care Coordination

Care coordination can fall short due to systemic barriers that limit access to information and slow organizational workflows to a crawl. Three common care coordination pitfalls include:

Siloed Systems That Prevent Seamless Information Exchange

Patients’ protected health information (PHI) typically lives within multiple systems, including an EHR, patient portals, fax machines, and practice management systems. Systems that aren’t properly integrated will need some type of manual intervention in order to share patient information, leading to re-keying and increasing the risk for errors. This problem is then exacerbated as practices attempt to share data with referring providers who also use different systems.

The dangers of siloed systems: Imagine a scenario where a primary care provider (PCP) refers a patient to a cardiologist for evaluation of worsening shortness of breath. The PCP’s office uses paper fax to send the referral, clinical notes, and lab results to the cardiologist. However, due to staffing shortages, the cardiologist’s office can’t enter the information until two days later. By the time the patient arrives for their appointment, the cardiologist has only a brief referral note in their EHR and not the updated lab results or medication history. As a result, the cardiologist repeats tests that were already done.

Manual Processes That Lead to Inefficiencies and Delays

Many healthcare organizations still rely on manual tasks such as printing, scanning, and physical faxing. This hands-on work consumes considerable time for providers and staff. It also increases the risk for human errors and elongates the time it takes to share information with other providers.

The dangers of manual processes: Let’s say a GI clinic receives a faxed referral from a PCP for a patient experiencing severe abdominal pain. A clinical staff member manually entered the wrong medication dose (10 mg of a blood thinner instead of the prescribed 1.0) into the EHR. Unaware of the error, the gastroenterologist delays an urgent diagnostic procedure due to the perceived elevated risk of bleeding.

Compliance Concerns With Patient Data Sharing

Your patients’ PHI is only as safe as the systems in which it lives and how it travels between those systems. If your solutions don’t communicate with one another, providers and staff may try to take shortcuts, opening the door for potential HIPAA violations. These types of compliance breaches expose your patients’ private information and can create significant monetary penalties from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

The dangers of fragmented care: Consider a situation where an orthopedic surgeon attempts to share a care plan with a referring physician via paper fax, but the fax will not transmit. Frustrated, the provider sends the care plan through the physician’s personal email account instead of the practice email. The surgeon mistakenly types in the wrong email address, triggering a HIPAA violation.

How Technology Improves Care Coordination

Modern, cloud-based solutions help providers and staff exchange data securely inside and outside their organizations, enabling the type of highly coordinated care patients deserve. Your practice can start busting through the barriers to care coordination with solutions that embrace these three key principles:

1. EHR Interoperability and Secure Information Exchange

Interoperability allows for the secure exchange of information like treatment summaries and imaging reports across different EHR systems during transitions of care. By choosing interoperable solutions, providers receive both the data and the clinical context they need to make more informed diagnoses.

How it enhances care coordination: A regional health network integrates its EHR with a local orthopedic group using a secure document exchange platform. Now, care teams can access treatment plans and progress notes in real time, reducing hospital readmissions through improved patient adherence with follow-up care plans.

2. Automated Administrative Workflows With Cloud Faxing and AI

Clunky workflows frustrate practice staff and increase feelings of burnout among providers. In contrast, automated workflows reduce administrative burdens and support coordinated care. Cloud-based online faxing solutions turn formerly paper-based processes into streamlined workflows, giving providers immediate access to vital healthcare information. AI can convert medical faxes into structured data and route them to the correct patient record within your EHR.

How it enhances care coordination: A multi-specialty clinic adopts an AI-powered cloud fax solution to extract key patient data from inbound referrals. What once took 15 minutes of staff time per fax now takes less than a minute, improving productivity and accelerating patient intake.

3. Smoother Data Transfer Backed by FHIR and HL7

Think of FHIR and HL7 as the common language of healthcare. These universal data sharing frameworks allow providers to share information digitally across care sites in real time using application programming interfaces (APIs). The results: faster diagnoses, quicker treatment, and improved care across venues, from urgent cares and emergency rooms to medical practices and behavioral health centers.

How it enhances care coordination: Envision a world where an accountable care organization uses FHIR-based APIs to integrate patient data from multiple providers into a centralized platform. The organizer’s care coordinators can now manage chronic disease interventions and provide social services with greater precision, improving population health outcomes.

Best Practices for Implementing Care Coordination Software

Healthcare organizations must select solutions that enhance existing staff workflows, not disrupt them. A few ways to find the right choice for your practice:

Assess Your Current Care Coordination Capabilities

First, identify any existing care coordination gaps within your organization. Pay close attention to any older, legacy technology systems. Often, these systems are difficult to integrate.

In addition to reviewing your practice’s tech stack, you should:

• Map out key touchpoints between internal departments and external parties, including referring providers and care facilities.
• Look for any manual processes, such as manual data entry or physical staffing, that are ripe for automation.
• Review feedback from patient reviews. Often, your patients will be the first ones to point out any care coordination missteps.

Once you thoroughly understand your organization’s current processes and technology, you can develop a plan to enhance your care coordination capabilities.

Evaluate Cloud-Based Solutions for Seamless, Secure Communication

Cloud-based solutions offer APIs for quick integration. But not all cloud-based tools are alike. To achieve care coordination at scale, seek solutions built specifically for healthcare. Prioritize tools that use the HL7 and FHIR frameworks. Bonus points if your solutions comply with the HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF), the “gold standard” for cybersecurity and data protection.

Consensus Cloud Solutions offers a suite of cloud-based, EHR-interoperable tools designed to improve care coordination across your entire organization, including:

• eFax Corporate® enables secure, scalable cloud faxing that integrates directly with your existing EHR, so providers and staff can send digital faxes without interrupting their workflows. eFax Corporate encrypts PHI both inside your EHR and while it’s being sent to other providers and facilities. It’s also fully HIPAA compliant and carries HITRUST certification.
• Clarity Clinical Documentation™ minimizes manual data entry, freeing staff from tedious paperwork. Clarity CD routes medical faxes directly to the appropriate patient record in your EHR. Then, using AI and natural language processing (NLP), it extracts key patient demographics from the fax and converts them into a structured Continuity of Care document that’s easy to share with other providers.
• eFax Unite™ is designed specifically to eliminate fragmented communication and remove inefficient workflows. An interoperability platform, eFax Unite lets you share files, connect with millions of providers, execute electronic signatures, and even send Direct Secure Messages to post-acute facilities, specialty practices, labs, hospitals, and other care partners.

Here’s how all three of these solutions could work together to help providers communicate effectively and advocate for their patients:

A PCP refers a patient to a pulmonologist. The referral — including handwritten notes, lab results, and imaging reports — is faxed digitally to the pulmonologist’s inbox using eFax Corporate. At the pulmonology office, the care team uses Clarity Clinical Documentation to extract key data from the digital fax, such as diagnosis codes and medications, and turns it into a structured document that lives within the practice’s EHR. Even though the two practices use different EHRs, they can share patient information securely through a Health Information Exchange (HIE) using Direct Secure Messaging within eFax Unite.

Care Coordination Starts With Tighter Connections

Improving care coordination is a team sport, and it takes cooperation from multiple parties within the healthcare ecosystem. With cloud faxing and AI-enabled tools, your organization can set an example by eliminating manual processes, sharing information securely, and enhancing the quality of care you deliver for your patients.

Learn more about how interoperable tools like eFax Corporate, Clarity Clinical Documentation, and eFax Unite can help your organization deliver more connected care without overhauling your entire tech stack.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

Selecting the right electronic medical records (EMR) software can seem daunting for healthcare practice leaders. The solution must be easy to use. It has to keep patient data secure. Most importantly, it must help everyone in your practice — providers, registrars, coders, and billers — do their jobs faster with reliable and accurate data. 

Where to begin? Let’s start by looking at the key buying criteria and explore how Consensus Cloud Solutions can close the gap between the promise of EMR software and the real-world workflows your teams manage every day.

EMR vs. EHR — What’s the Difference?

While they may seem interchangeable, the terms EMR software and electronic health records (EHR) software have different meanings. How can you tell the difference between EHR and EMR?

An EMR transforms paper charts into electronic records stored within the four walls of your practice. It stores all of your patients’ medical histories and treatment plans. However, data within your EMR is typically confined to your practice. If you need to send medication histories or other documentation to referring providers, you may need to use paper faxing or other manual methods.

An EHR, meanwhile, goes one step further. It’s designed for data sharing across multiple providers. This gives referring providers access to your patients’ labs, visit history, and other key information, regardless of where the care was delivered. 

If your practice already has athenaOne® or another EHR, it’s essential to find EMR software that integrates with your EHR and fits within your existing workflows. For example, eFax Corporate® offers an out-of-the-box athenaOne integration that sends digital faxes directly to the patient’s record within the EHR, eliminating manual re-keying while giving clinicians access to critical patient information quickly.

5 Top Considerations When Selecting EMR Software

Because EMR software will impact every aspect of your practice, practices typically devote a lot of time to due diligence. On average, the process takes three-to-six months. The vast majority (92%) of software buyers begin by creating a shortlist of 3-5 vendors, and more than half (59%) end up selecting a vendor from that initial shortlist.

To ensure you get the right vendors on your shortlist, keep these 5 essential considerations top of mind during the evaluation and assessment process.

1. Usability and Workflow Integration

Any new EMR software you choose should make work easier, not harder, for your practice’s providers and staff. Look for solutions that offer:

• High usability, with intuitive navigation that reduces time spent on clinical documentation and increases face time with patients
• Clear visual displays and dashboards that let users quickly find the information they need
• Seamless integration with all of your essential systems, including your:
  • EHR
  • Customer relationship management (CRM) database
  • Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
  • Document management system (DMS)
  • Billing software
  • Mobile devices

Solutions with built-in application programming interfaces (APIs) make integration simple so your team can get the most out of your new solution and all of their existing digital tools.

Pro tip: Include your providers in the process of selecting and customizing EMR software to ensure it meets their specific needs.

2. Security and Compliance

While HIPAA compliance is table stakes for EMR software, regulations are changing, and practices must keep pace. Newly proposed legislation, for example, aims to modernize the HIPAA Security Rule, addressing technical aspects such as data encryption and multi-factor authentication in an effort to further safeguard patients’ protected health information (PHI). 

Practices can remain ahead of these changes by selecting EMR solutions with strong encryption protocols, including AES 128-bit or higher to protect data at rest and transport layer security (TLS) protocols to protect data in transit. 

Pro tip: For maximum data protection, practices should also prioritize solutions that are HITRUST-certified, the “gold standard” for cybersecurity in healthcare.

3. Interoperability and Data Sharing

Patient care seldom ends at your practice’s front door, which is why data sharing is a crucial consideration for any EMR software. Interoperability empowers providers and staff to exchange data with hospitals, accountable care organizations (ACOs), labs, pharmacies, imaging centers, and other specialists to streamline care and, ultimately, improve outcomes. 

Look for solutions that support two universal data sharing protocols, HL7 and FHIR. Both provide secure, real-time access to data so you can deliver highly coordinated, patient-centered care.

Pro tip: Advance your practice’s value-based care capabilities by integrating eFax Corporate with eFax Unite™. Doing so will allow providers to quickly and securely query Carequality and other health information exchanges (HIEs) for patient information.

4. Cost and ROI Considerations

Make no mistake, EMR software is a significant financial investment. The actual cost will depend on the size of your practice and your specialty. Yet while it’s tempting to select an EMR product based on its sticker price, the total costs of ownership go beyond the initial fee. 

Practices should perform a full cost-benefit analysis that includes the purchase price and intangibles like user licenses, implementation costs, and troubleshooting-related expenses. When calculating the potential return on investment, account for potential revenue growth and operational efficiency, calculating items such as hours of manual work eliminated or documentation time saved.

Pro tip: Cloud-based EMR solutions are cheaper and easier to maintain than older legacy systems. They also give practices access to automatic safety upgrades, removing manual software patches and delivering additional cost savings.

5. Vendor Support and Reputation

A best-in-class EMR solution won’t just deliver excellent functionality. It will also be backed by a trusted vendor that prioritizes ongoing support after the sale. To choose the best vendor, compare online reviews. Scan unbiased third-party review websites like KLAS Research and G2. Ask other practices what they like and don’t like about their current vendors. Then, prepare a list of questions for potential vendor interviews, including:

• How much experience do you have with healthcare practices?
• What is your company’s track record with data security?
• How do you stay on top of evolving regulations?
• What levels of support are included in the contract?
• Are there any additional costs for support services or system upgrades?

These questions will help you evaluate the levels of support you’ll receive and give you a good gauge of each vendor’s reputation.

Pro tip: Ask vendors for case studies and testimonials from other healthcare practices that have implemented their solutions successfully.

How Consensus Cloud Solutions and eFax Corporate Support EMR Workflows

Consensus Cloud Solutions offers multiple interoperable EMR solutions designed to fit within the workflows your healthcare practice uses today, improving clinical efficiency and driving long-term ROI. 

Secure, HIPAA-Compliant Document Exchange

eFax Corporate gives practices a trusted, scalable platform for efficient, compliant digital faxing. The platform meets and exceeds HIPAA regulations, providing round-the-clock data encryption, including TLS encryption for data in transit and AES 256-bit encryption for data in storage. For added security, eFax Corporate can perform digital faxing on a virtual private network (VPN) for digital faxing.

Additionally, eFax Corporate carries HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) certification, keeping PHI protected. Plus, multi-layered audit controls support both internal compliance tracking and external audits.

User-Friendly AI-Powered Data Extraction for Structured Records

Handwritten doctor’s notes and paper faxes historically caused barriers for healthcare practices, but AI offers a breakthrough. Clarity CD™ uses AI and natural language processing (NLP) to read and understand the clinical context within referrals, lab reports, and progress notes. This advancement allows practices to automatically extract unstructured data from paper documents.

Clarity CD then populates this unstructured data into a structured, standardized Continuity of Care document that can be shared easily across multiple sites of care, including labs, urgent care centers, surgery centers, and primary care practices. Full EHR integration means structured notes get uploaded directly into your system of choice. Practices report achieving more than 70% efficiency over manual data entry with Clarity CD.

Seamless Interoperability and EHR Integration

One of the biggest time wasters inside a practice happens when colleagues have to toggle through multiple platforms just to talk with providers, patients, and health plans. By integrating eFax Corporate with eFax Unite, practices can easily share critical information with providers without changing workflows or switching solutions.

With eFax Unite, practices can send and receive any patient information using Direct Secure Messaging, which is quickly becoming the preferred communication method between PCPs and specialists. From the same platform, providers can query Carequality or other HIEs for additional patient information. Providers also get access to the National Provider Directory, enabling seamless, interoperable connections with nearly 1 million providers.

EMR Implementation Best Practices

Once your practice has decided to investigate EMR solutions, it’s time to create a strategic implementation plan. Be sure to include these three critical areas:

Planning and Vendor Selection

Outline your practice’s goals, then assemble a cross-functional team (providers, front-desk staff, back-office staff) to lead the selection process. Research vendors and create a shortlist. Then, schedule demos with top vendors so you can assess usability and interoperability firsthand. Remember to prioritize solutions that come highly recommended from peers and other people in the industry whom you trust. eFax Corporate, for example, is proud to be included on G2’s 2025 Best Healthcare Software Products list.

Training and Adoption Strategies

Once you decide on a solution, determine how you want to train your practice’s staff. A phased approach tends to work best for many practices. Provide comprehensive education based on each staff member’s specific role within the practice. Consider designating one or two colleagues as “super users” who can offer peer-to-peer support and serve as the go-to for any troubleshooting needs.

Integration and Long-Term Optimization

Gather continuous feedback from staff to make sure your chosen EMR solution continues to deliver value. Provide EMR training in new employee orientation and implement ongoing refresher training for staff. Perform routine system audits to identify and fix any integration hiccups. Use data analytics to monitor clinical efficiency and outcomes.

EMR Software: A Long-Term Investment in Your Practice’s Health

It takes time and commitment to choose the right EMR software. But once you make the right choice, your practice and its patients will realize the benefits for years to come. Tools like eFax Corporate, eFax Unite, and Clarity CD ensure the highest levels of usability and integration, allowing your providers and staff to continue putting patients first.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

Alice arrives at Bonobo Healthcare, where Dr. Carol needs her medical history from a local clinic. 

They fax it over. Dr. Carol must do what doctors, nurses, and clinicians do every day: read through these notes and manually enter them into the EHR system before beginning treatment.

This scenario highlights a critical healthcare problem: clinical staff waste valuable time processing unstructured data — faxed notes, handwritten forms, and PDF documents — when they could be treating patients.

Healthcare depends on data, but much remains trapped in non-standardized formats. Despite advances in electronic health records, healthcare organizations still struggle with paper documents and faxes that require manual processing. This:

• Drains resources
• Contributes to staff burnout
• Risks data inaccuracy
• Threatens regulatory compliance
• Potentially harms patient outcomes

AI data extraction can automatically convert unstructured documents into structured, usable data faster, more accurately, and with less staff burden. This transforms healthcare documentation, benefiting patients, providers, and healthcare organizations. In this article, you’ll learn how AI-powered data extraction solutions are revolutionizing healthcare workflows and the tangible benefits they deliver for both clinical staff and patient care. 

The Challenges of Manual Data Extraction in Healthcare

Despite advancements in electronic systems, faxing remains the dominant form of transmitting clinical documentation, with 70% of health organizations still exchanging patient information by fax. Manual processing (printing, reading, typing into EHR) is labor-intensive and slow, creating bottlenecks that delay patient care.

But the problems go way beyond the doctor-patient interaction:

• Human errors and inconsistencies: Manual data entry creates errors — typos in patient information, documents misfiled under the wrong patient, and missed updates. With 70% of physicians struggling to find information in EHRs, they frequently overlook critical data, leading to medical errors and poor care quality.
• Staff burnout and workforce shortage: Nearly 75% of physicians blame the EHR for their burnout symptoms. Clinicians spend two additional hours on electronic data entry for every hour with patients, contributing to burnout in nearly 50% of primary care physicians.
• Compliance: Manual processes create compliance gaps through unauthorized access (like faxes left on machines) or outdated records. Hospitals and nursing facilities exchange incomplete, delayed, or difficult-to-use information in over 30% of cases, making it nearly impossible to maintain proper documentation standards manually.
• Cost and productivity impact: These challenges cost healthcare organizations money through extra labor, slower revenue cycles, and potential penalties. Physicians spend 49.2% of clinic time on EHR and desk work and only 27% directly with patients. Each fax page costs $1.50 to process, taking about 180 seconds per fax.

What is AI Data Extraction in Healthcare (and How Does it Work)?

AI data extraction transforms unstructured healthcare documents into structured, actionable data. 

Here’s how this works in practice, using Alice’s visit to Bonobo Healthcare as an example:

Step 1: Ingest

When Alice arrives, her faxed medical history from the local clinic immediately enters Bonobo’s AI system. The system captures these inputs — whether they’re referral letters, lab results, or clinical notes — through direct fax integration, email, uploads, or scanner connections.

Step 2: AI/ML Analysis

The system employs multiple technologies to understand and extract meaningful information:

• Optical character recognition (OCR) enhances document quality and converts visual text to digital characters. For example, it can distinguish between “50mg” and “500mg” on Alice’s medication list and recognize her doctor’s handwritten note about recent dizziness symptoms.
• Machine learning classification identifies the document type (in this case, a patient history and medication list) and locates specific information fields. It knows to look for allergies near the top of the form and medication dosages in the middle section, even though the clinic’s form differs from Bonobo’s standard template.
• Large language models (LLMs) identify medical concepts and understand connections between them. They recognize that Alice’s “Type 2 DM” and “T2DM” both refer to Type 2 Diabetes and can associate her Metformin prescription with this diagnosis.

Step 3: Format

The system organizes Alice’s information into a structured document with appropriate sections. An unusually high blood pressure reading (195/110) is automatically flagged for human verification.

Step 4: HISP (Health Information Service Provider)

The formatted data travels through HIPAA-compliant channels to ensure security and regulatory compliance.

Step 5: EHR Integration

By the time Dr. Carol opens Alice’s chart, all information is populated in the appropriate EHR sections. Instead of spending 10-15 minutes manually processing paperwork, Dr. Carol immediately addresses Alice’s concerns, discusses her diabetes management, and investigates her dizziness symptoms.

Meanwhile, billing receives accurate coding information, and the system automatically creates a reminder for Alice’s next HbA1c test.

Introducing Clarity CD

Clarity Clinical Documentation™ is a comprehensive AI-powered data extraction solution that seamlessly integrates with existing healthcare systems. The platform processes incoming documents through the complete workflow:

1. Document capture: Automatically receives and processes documents from multiple sources, including eFax, emails, scanners, and uploads.
2. Intelligent extraction: Applies advanced OCR, machine learning, and healthcare-specific NLP to accurately extract critical information.
3. Structured output: Transforms unstructured content into standardized formats compatible with your systems.
4. Secure delivery: Routes the processed information through HIPAA-compliant channels.
5. EHR integration: Populates the correct fields in your existing EHR without disruptive implementation.

Because Clarity CD integrates directly with cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant eFax services, the entire workflow remains secure while eliminating paper handling.

6 Key Benefits of AI-Powered Data Extraction for Healthcare

With AI in place, we can see what benefits the system brings to address the challenges above:

1. More time for what matters. When Alice’s medical records arrive at Bonobo Healthcare, AI processes them instantly rather than sitting in a fax queue. Staff can focus on patient experience instead of data entry, reducing backlogs and accelerating care delivery.
   • For the whole organization: Clarity CD reduces processing time by 70% compared to manual data entry, addressing the paper and fax overload that previously created bottlenecks.
   • For COOs and clinical leaders: Staff time can be redirected from manual data entry to higher-value activities, with immediate improvements in operational efficiency.
2. Data providers can trust. Dr. Carol can trust that Alice’s information has been accurately extracted. Unlike manual transcription, the AI system consistently and accurately identifies medications, diagnoses, and test results, eliminating potentially dangerous mistakes like misinterpreting dosages.
   • Real results: Data entry errors are reduced to near zero, eliminating the human errors and inconsistencies that compromise patient safety.
   • For the billing department: Accurate diagnostic codes ensure proper reimbursement without manual coding errors.
3. Care that doesn’t keep patients waiting. Alice’s complete medical history is available in the EHR immediately upon receipt of documents. Critical information, such as lab results and previous diagnoses, is instantly accessible, allowing for faster clinical decisions without delays that could impact treatment timelines.
   • Measurable impact: Critical patient data becomes available immediately, preventing the delays that occur when 50% of post-acute providers receive information only after patients are in their care.
   • For the pharmacy: Immediate access to medication history prevents adverse interactions.
4. Peace of mind for compliance teams. Bonobo benefits from automatic audit trails and reduced exposure to protected health information. The structured data format makes it easier to meet interoperability requirements when sharing information with other providers, reducing compliance risks.
   • Compliance advantage: Comprehensive audit trails and secure handling ensure protected health information remains safe, addressing the risks inherent in manual processes.
   • For CFOs: Reduced costs associated with documentation-related delays and faster revenue cycles through more efficient claims processing.
5. Information that tells the whole story. Rather than just attaching scanned PDFs, the system extracts and organizes data into appropriate EHR fields. This allows Dr. Carol to easily see Alice’s health metric trends and ensures important information isn’t buried in attachments.
   • Documentation quality: Structured data population enhances the completeness and usability of patient records, solving the problem where 76% of skilled nursing facilities report receiving unusable data.
   • For quality improvement teams: Structured data makes it easier to analyze and identify care gaps.
6. Clinicians who can be human again. Dr. Carol can dedicate more time to direct patient interaction instead of administrative tasks. The reduced documentation burden decreases the risk of burnout for clinical staff, leading to better care experiences and a more satisfying professional practice.
   • Staff wellbeing: Clinical staff freed from documentation burdens can refocus on patient care, directly addressing the burnout challenges where physicians spend nearly half their time on EHR work.
   • Patient experience: Enhanced patient satisfaction through more attentive care and faster processing.

What once required significant manual effort now happens seamlessly in the background, creating a more efficient, accurate, and patient-centered visit while maintaining security and regulatory compliance.

For CTOs and CIOs, Clarity CD doesn’t require replacing existing systems — it layers onto current workflows, preserving your technology investments. As a scalable cloud solution, IT leaders don’t need to maintain complex new infrastructure, and implementation is streamlined with minimal disruption to operations.

Clarity CD transforms how organizations manage information flow by addressing the fundamental challenges of healthcare documentation. It turns what was once a burden into a strategic advantage that improves care quality while reducing costs.

Planning for AI Data Extraction

AI data extraction transforms healthcare operations. It turns the long-standing unstructured data problem into an opportunity, freeing up time, reducing errors, improving compliance, and, ultimately, speeding up care delivery.

If you want to plan for AI in your healthcare organization, here are some pointers to start:

• Assess your document workflows: Audit where unstructured data enters the organization (fax lines, email attachments, scanning of paper forms) and identify high-impact areas to automate.
• Ensure seamless integration: Any AI extraction tool must integrate seamlessly with EHR or document management systems. Clarity CD was built for interoperability. Avoid creating another data silo.
• Prioritize data security: Vet solutions for strong security practices, including compliance with HIPAA, HITRUST certification, encryption of data in transit and at rest, and robust user access controls.
• Verify accuracy and customization: Inquire about a solution’s accuracy rates and how it performs on clinical documents specifically. Can it handle medical terminology, abbreviations, and varying document formats? Is it using templates or true ML?
• Plan for change management: Implementing AI data extraction will change staff workflows. Ensure there’s a plan to train staff to review AI-extracted data (especially in early phases) and gradually trust the system. Emphasize that these tools are meant to assist staff, not replace them.
• Start small, then scale: Start by conducting a pilot in one department or use case (e.g., processing incoming referral faxes in a clinic) to validate the technology and measure its benefits.

Healthcare leaders who want to reclaim the hours lost to manual data entry and bolster their digital strategy should explore AI-powered document extraction. Solutions like Consensus Clarity CD are available today to help turn unstructured documents into actionable data. 

Download our free guide: From Hype to Reality: How AI Can Automate Fax Processing to learn how other organizations have successfully implemented this technology. Then, when you’re ready to see the technology in action, contact us to schedule your Clarity CD demo.

By embracing AI for data extraction, healthcare organizations can achieve new efficiency and data excellence levels, allowing their teams to focus on what truly matters: delivering high-quality patient care.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

When your healthcare organization can exchange data seamlessly with other providers, quality of care improves, and provider burdens lessen. So, why are just 43% of hospitals routinely engaging in interoperable data exchange right now?

Electronic health record (EHR) interoperability has stalled — not due to a lack of standards, but because organizations still rely on fragmented, outdated systems. Cloud-based EHR interoperability solutions, like those from Consensus Cloud Solutions, are removing the roadblocks and paving the way for secure, seamless data exchange that finally delivers on interoperability’s promise.

Let’s answer common questions about EHR interoperability standards, examine the challenges of adopting them, and explore how cloud-based solutions can help your organization break through the barriers.

What Benefits of EHR Interoperability Await Organizations That Get it Right?

To shape their strategies, C-suite leaders industry-wide are shifting their conversations away from the basics of what EHR interoperability is and toward setting KPIs based on real-world benefits of EHR interoperability that other organizations have achieved, including:

• Lowers administrative costs. Administrative burdens consume up to 30% of the nation’s total healthcare spend. By reducing manual tasks like re-keying information from faxes, interoperability eliminates busy work and reduces the risk of billing or claims processing errors.
• Improves data accuracy. Duplicate or incomplete data can lead to misdiagnoses and medication errors. Conversely, multiple studies show that EHR interoperability leads to greater medication safety and reduces the risk of serious patient safety events. 
• Accelerates care coordination. Rapid sharing of EHR data creates smooth transition-of-care handoffs, such as patients moving from hospitals to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs).
• Enhances regulatory compliance. Interoperability promotes compliant sharing of PHI, reducing the risk of HIPAA violations and costly fines.
• Creates more engaged patients. Information sharing between patient portals, mobile health apps, and wearables helps patients stay healthy and improve chronic condition management.

Building Blocks for Next-Level EHR Interoperability

Achieving higher levels of EHR interoperability starts by establishing a strong foundation built on universally accepted standards that enable the secure and consistent exchange of data across systems. Any solution you add to your organization’s tech stack should comply with at least one of these four protocols.

• HL7 (Health Level Seven International): HL7 is a foundational data sharing framework, allowing real-time communications between hospitals, skilled nursing facilities (SNF), laboratories, and disparate EHRs. 
• FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources): Developed by HL7, FHIR creates a modern, web-based framework for exchanging healthcare data, using application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate seamlessly with providers, networks, EHRs, and health information exchanges (HIEs).
• CCD (Continuity of Care Document): Typically used for care transitions, a CCD provides essential patient demographics — medications, allergies, immunization records, medical history — in a standard Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) format.
• X12: The ANSI X12N/EDI standard ensures healthcare organizations comply with administrative requirements regarding the electronic submission and processing of insurance claims, eligibility verifications, and payments.

Using these protocols as your guide, your organization can future-proof its systems and ensure smooth, accurate information exchange across every point of care.

The EHR Interoperability Barriers That Hold Many Healthcare Organizations Back

Multiple technical and regulatory hurdles stand in the way of full interoperability, which is why interoperability remained flat among U.S. hospitals from 2022 to 2023. Outdated legacy systems incapable of integrating with newer technologies represent the biggest barriers to adopting consistent information-sharing standards. When systems cannot talk to one another in a common language, these additional challenges result:

Lack of Standardization

EHRs vary among healthcare organizations. When one EHR uses a different data format, coding system, or communications protocol than another, information gaps occur, creating unexpected and dangerous consequences. For example, if an urgent care center receives a medical history from a patient’s external provider in a non-universal format, staff may have to re-key the information. If a typo or oversight mistakenly occurs in that patient’s medication allergy list, it could trigger a serious safety event. 

Complex Integration Costs

Trying to maintain, update, and integrate legacy systems chews up enormous IT staff time and financial resources. Larger health systems without appropriate in-house staff must grapple with costly vendor fees to remain compliant. Smaller practices and rural healthcare facilities must pick and choose updates and integrations based on their budgetary constraints, inhibiting their ability to achieve true interoperability.

Security and Privacy Risks

Healthcare organizations continue to be prime targets for cyberattacks, including data breaches and ransomware events. Sharing protected health information (PHI) across multiple systems without proper security controls raises the risk of breaches because it causes staff to rely on unsecured, manual workarounds that lack encryption, permissions management, and audit trails. Organizations must insist on solutions that use data encryption to protect sensitive patient data. Another must-have: tight access controls that can ensure only clinicians and others with specific permissions can access PHI when it’s at rest or in transit.

Reluctance to Share Data

While the 21st Century Cures Act prohibits information blocking, the rules are complex, and exceptions exist, causing some vendors or organizations to inadvertently inhibit access to information. When information is blocked, providers lack access to a patient’s complete medical record, so they may order duplicate tests without knowing it or make a wrong diagnosis based on a key piece of missing medical information. Patients, too, feel the effects of information blocking. For example, if a provider’s system doesn’t share data freely, patients may have to repeat unnecessary tests or fill out the same paperwork multiple times.

Gaps in Patient Identifiers

Matching patient records across systems is challenging without a universal patient identifier. A patient with different last names, whether due to marriage or other reasons, may have two separate medical records. The same is true if patient names are accidentally misspelled because they have to be re-keyed into an organization’s EHR. These inaccuracies slow down workflows, increase administrative burdens for staff, and can lead to billing snafus, claims denials, and medication errors.

Five Essential Steps to Achieve True Interoperability (and EHR Interoperability Solutions to Help You Get There)

Overcoming the challenges of EHR interoperability and achieving higher levels of data sharing requires a proven strategy coupled with leading-edge technology. Shape a winning strategy around these five tenets, and discover how EHR interoperability solutions from Consensus Cloud Solutions can support your team at each step of their journey.

Adopt Compatible Standards

Interoperability begins by choosing tools that speak the same language. Consensus solutions support compatible standards by converting paper files and faxes into formats that can be easily shared.

eFax Corporate® helps organizations leverage their legacy systems and move from simple digital documents to advanced healthcare standards for HL7 and FHIR secure data transport. With eFax Corporate, you can convert paper-based medical records into electronic documents. What’s more, eFax Corporate can integrate with your existing electronic medical record (EMR) or EHR system through a simple, secure cloud fax API.

Clarity CD™ uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP) to extract unstructured data from faxes and images and then turn them into structured C-CDA files that integrate directly into your EHR. Here’s how the process works:

Establish Clear Governance

The next step in your interoperability journey is to procure solutions that allow you to access, share, and secure data so you can remain compliant with HIPAA and the 21st Century Cures Act. 

eFax Corporate encrypts data to prevent unauthorized PHI access and reduce legal risks. A user control panel inside eFax Corporate lets you assign tiered levels of administrative access from one central location. You can add or remove users across the entire organization, automate onboarding and offboarding, and maintain a full audit trail. Features like these support standardized policy enforcement while keeping PHI protected.

Implement Scalable Infrastructure

Rigid point-to-point connections will not create true EHR operability. Instead, your organization needs systems designed for easy integration to avoid the high cost and complexity of manual connections. 

The eFax Unite™ platform centralizes multiple communication channels — fax, Direct Secure Messaging, Care Quality/Trusted Exchange Framework and Custom Agreement (TEFCA) — without requiring point-to-point connections. You can send patient data effortlessly through CareQuality, including connections with CommonWell Health Alliance, accountable care organizations, HIEs, and other data exchange networks. 

Organizations using athenahealth’s EHR will benefit from the eFax integration with athenaOne®, which matches faxed patient information with the right patient record, so providers have the information they need at the point of care. Here’s how it works:

Train Staff and Stakeholders

Your interoperability strategy is only as strong as the people who use your systems every day. Clinicians and staff need intuitive, efficient workflows so they can exchange information with referring providers and post-acute care centers easily. Consensus solutions fit naturally into how teams work, improving productivity and reducing the disruption of having to learn new tools.

With eFax Corporate, staff can send, receive, and route faxes using email-like tools. In addition, you can configure eFax Corporate to send with specific routing customized to your organization’s workflow. Features like this help staff get back about 70% of their time for patient care.

Clarity CD removes repetitive manual entry by using AI to extract and structure data. And eFax Unite centralizes communications, saving staff from having to learn and use multiple different tools.

Monitor and Measure Outcomes

By tracking and measuring your KPIs, you can push your organization toward higher levels of EHR interoperability. To make this happen, you need visibility into how information moves, who it reaches, and how it influences patient care. Consensus solutions offer multiple built-in tools to help you measure your KPIs and improve performance over time.

eFax Corporate includes detailed reporting features that let teams track fax volume by department or user, helping identify bottlenecks and reduce time spent on administrative tasks.

eFax Unite provides a full audit trail and a complete view of data exchange across networks so you can monitor and improve timeliness, delivery status, and compliance.

Achieve Seamless Data Exchange With the Right EHR Interoperability Solutions

EHR interoperability is not just nice to have. It’s now federally regulated and enforced through hefty civil monetary penalties (reaching up to $1 million per violation for information blocking) with the TEFCA final rule that went into effect on January 15, 2025. Uplevel your interoperability capabilities by evaluating cloud-based solutions that can help your organization share information, improve care quality, and reduce costs through seamless data exchange. Ready to begin? Request a demo of Consensus Cloud Solutions’ products today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

When every second counts, delays in accessing pathology images or lab results can jeopardize patient care and disrupt healthcare operations. Yet, 57% of healthcare organizations still report significant difficulty sending and receiving data across different vendor platforms. 

This challenge highlights the growing emphasis on electronic health records (EHR) interoperability solutions—seamless data exchanges between various systems, devices, and applications. Interoperability in healthcare is the backbone of health services, enabling providers and patients to remain connected throughout the continuum of care. However, the current state of EHR interoperability often falls short.

In this guide, we’ll go beyond the surface of clinical documentation and electronic health records to explore why interoperability is vital in today’s medical climate. We’ll also explore how it works, the obstacles to achieving it and how to ensure data fluidity and digital interoperability. 

EHR Interoperability Explained

Healthcare is a data-driven industry: the average hospital generates approximately 50 petabytes of data annually, with the volume of healthcare data increasing at a rate of 47% per year. As data continues to grow, EHR compatibility becomes essential to ensure effective integration. 

Organizations that produce health data in the form of electronic medical records (EMR), radiography, laboratory reports, pathology images and even payor claims carry a responsibility to ensure it’s accessible beyond their own systems. Enter the role of EHR interoperability. 

What is EHR Interoperability?

An electronic health record is a comprehensive digital version of a patient’s medical history, including diagnoses, medications, plus previous and ongoing treatment plans. EHR systems enable healthcare providers to access, share and update patient data across multiple platforms, often in real-time, so authorized personnel can retrieve accurate patient information during each interaction.

EHR interoperability refers to the ability of these systems to communicate with one another across different providers and practices, from hospitals and home healthcare agencies to acute and post-acute facilities. Interoperability allows EHR systems to securely exchange patient data in an easily accessible manner so critical information can be shared seamlessly across multiple networks. 

5 Key Features of an EHR Interoperability System

An interoperable EHR system supports coordinated care among various hospitals, practices and specialists to streamline clinical workflows and improve patient outcomes. It does so through five key features:

1. Data Management: Stores patient information in a secure, digital format that complies with data protection standards and is easily accessible to authorized healthcare providers from multiple locations in real-time.
2. Direct Secure Messaging: Communicates with authorized personnel within the practice and connects with statewide HIEs, community exchanges, referral networks and the providers within those exchanges.
3. Patient Information Query: Supports searches for relevant patient data, such as allergies and diagnoses from another healthcare system or database, like Carequality or CommonWell Health Alliance, to ensure proper patient mapping.
4. Data Exchange Networks: Bridges the communication gap between multiple providers to ensure a continuity of care and assess acuity for follow-up care plans, particularly for patients with complex medical conditions. 
5. Digital Cloud Fax: Delivers digital documents including but not limited to faxes, referrals and ePrescribing to send prescriptions directly to pharmacies and minimize errors from handwritten documentation. 

While some EHR systems excel in data management, they lack direct secure messaging and digital cloud faxing that automate data exchanges. A Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant and HITRUST r2 (2-Year) solution like eFax Unite™ eliminates these data silos, working to securely transmit patient records. eFax Unite encrypts data and sends it via a secure communication tunnel (TLS 1.2) so it’s instantly accessible to validated healthcare participants. 

The Importance of EHR Interoperability in Healthcare

The American Hospital Association (AHA) reports that the vast majority of office-based physicians (78%) and nearly all non-federal acute care hospitals (96%) have adopted a certified EHR system. The newfound ubiquity of these systems might suggest that EHR interoperability is at an all-time high; however, that’s far from the case.

As it stands, 56% of healthcare professionals do not share patient data within their organization, and 52% do not share it with outside organizations due to a lack of EHR interoperability, making it difficult to identify and respond to patients’ whole-person needs. When data is available, it’s often paper-based, hand-written and faxed.

These challenges underscore the importance of EHR interoperability in healthcare and secure digital cloud fax technology as a critical foundation for enhancing patient outcomes, supporting healthcare operations and empowering patients with greater control over their health data throughout the continuum of care. 

Enhancing Patient Outcomes

To understand how EHR interoperability enhances patient outcomes, it’s helpful to first consider how a lack of it disrupts the continuity of care. For example, one in four patients discharged from a hospital to a post-acute care setting experiences interruptions in their care coordination, including 40% of Medicare beneficiaries. 

Similarly, the exchange of maternal health data — which is not standardized — is often not interoperable across settings, hindering patient care as well as research on maternal morbidity, longitudinal maternal care and its impacts on infant well-being. Such gaps create barriers to understanding a mother’s health during and after pregnancy. 

These breakdowns in information exchange emphasize the importance of interoperable technologies. 

By enabling the seamless passage of information across digital health ecosystems, EHR interoperability improves diagnosis accuracy, supports data-driven treatment decisions and facilitates self-management of care. It equips healthcare professionals with evidence-based knowledge, ultimately driving better patient outcomes. 

Supporting Healthcare Operations

EHR interoperability plays a crucial role in supporting healthcare operations. It improves clinical documentation by automating communication between care teams, especially for patients with complex conditions requiring multiple specialists. Interoperability tools like eFax Unite’s Direct Secure Message feature ensure providers are consistently informed about updates to a patient’s treatment plan, reducing delays, refining care coordination and advancing operational efficiency. 

Additionally, EHR interoperability enables real-time event notifications from hospitals to home health agencies or acute facilities to rehabilitation clinics, alerting them when a shared patient is seen. Automating these updates prevents unnecessary home health visits during hospital stays and ensures timely follow-ups after discharge. As such, EHR interoperability helps optimize workflows, improve resource allocation and create a more efficient system for managing patient care transitions, addressing interoperability in healthcare challenges and resolving common EHR integration challenges that arise between healthcare systems. 

Empowering Patients

At the heart of EHR interoperability is its ability to empower patients through improved care delivery and communication. By ensuring healthcare providers have instant access to accurate, up-to-date information, interoperability bridges gaps in treatment and supports timely decision-making. This allows providers to offer care plans tailored to each patient’s needs, fostering trust and helping individuals take charge of their health journey.

Accurate and accessible health records also enable more collaborative care, empowering patients to actively engage with their treatment plans. When patients experience uninterrupted, coordinated care supported by interoperable systems, they feel more confident in their providers and more satisfied with their experience. This combination of trust and empowerment encourages greater patient engagement and better health outcomes, reinforcing the importance of interoperability in healthcare and highlighting the benefits of EHR interoperability. 

How EHR Interoperability Works

EHR interoperability relies on standardized data formats and protocols, like Health Level Seven (HL7) and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), plus Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) to sync patient data across providers, labs, pharmacies and patient portals. 

Data Standards and Protocols

In the context of EHR interoperability, “standard” has two key meanings:

1. Data Standardization: Defined elements and coding schemes that guarantee consistency in how medical data is generated and transmitted across healthcare systems.
2. Data Standards: Sets of rules that inform how data should be recorded, stored and shared between various healthcare providers to maintain security and accuracy.

Various standards and protocols enable EHR interoperability across healthcare systems. FHIR is the most widely recognized, while Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) guides how medical images are shared between different networks, such as picture archiving and communication systems (PACS).

There’s also ICD-10, which provides standardized codes for diagnoses and procedures that are essential for billing, and HL7 to support the accurate exchange of administrative, clinical and demographic data. Together, these frameworks create a foundation for seamless and secure patient health information sharing.

Connecting Systems and Providers

EHR systems replace paper files and charts, which often get lost in the shuffle, with automated data exchange between healthcare systems. To facilitate this, the federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) requires certified EHRs to offer open, standard APIs.

APIs are like bridges between different systems, allowing each provider to directly access and exchange standardized data. The most common healthcare API is SMART on FHIR API23 and the SMART/HL7 Bulk Data API. There are also HIEs connecting providers within a certain region, creating complete and accessible patient health records, even if an individual begins seeing a new doctor or healthcare group. 

3 Common Challenges in Achieving EHR Interoperability

Despite the increasing importance of EHR interoperability, nearly 60% of healthcare organizations still face challenges with sending and receiving data across platforms. The reason? Interoperability comes with its own set of hurdles. 

Technical and Infrastructure Barriers

As healthcare technology has evolved, legacy systems like hospital information systems (HIS) and laboratory information systems (LIS) have been replaced by loosely coupled ecosystems designed to integrate multiple databases into one dashboard. However, this patchwork approach often falls short. The lack of standardization across systems, paired with outdated infrastructure, hinders the flow of critical patient information. 

Overcoming these technical barriers is essential to achieving true EHR interoperability. With eFax Unite, you can stop using a patchworked technology stack to communicate with patients, providers and plans. Our simple, inbox-like interface powers direct secure messaging via the DirectTrust framework, with features that allow providers to parse, split, rotate and transform unstructured documentation into standardized data.  

Privacy and Security Concerns

The privacy, security and breach notification regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) safeguard protected health information (PHI) and ensure EHR interoperability. However, compliance remains challenging due to evolving threats and disjointed infrastructure. 

In 2023 alone, 725 data breaches were reported to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR), exposing over 133 million medical records. eFax Unite can help remedy this challenge. As a HIPAA-compliant, HITRUST r2 (2-year) certified solution, eFax Unite uses TLS 1.2 encryption for data transmissions and AES 256-bit encryption for storage to prevent PHI data leakage. 

Financial and Organizational Hurdles

Achieving EHR interoperability often requires significant financial investment, from upgrading legacy systems to training staff on new technology. Many organizations also struggle with fragmented systems for direct secure messaging, faxing and patient querying, creating inefficiencies and additional costs.  

eFax Unite solves these challenges by providing a single, centralized interface to manage all patient information. This streamlined approach provides true data fluidity and interoperability, eliminating the need for multiple systems and reducing both financial and organizational hurdles. 

Maximize Productivity with eFax Corporate and Unite Integration

Integrating eFax Corporate® with eFax Unite enhances EHR interoperability by connecting cloud-based faxing with a HIPAA-secure, HL7- and FHIR-compliant platform. This integration allows healthcare organizations to consolidate data exchange networks, patient information queries, direct secure messaging and digital faxing into one simplified system. 

With this unified approach, providers can efficiently manage digital and paper-based documents — such as faxes, scanned PDFs and referrals — through a single interface. Automating these workflows amplifies patient data exchange across the continuum of care, boosting connectivity and operational efficiency for better patient outcomes. 

With multiple EHR connectors, providers can easily perform patient lookups directly within eFax Unite, ensuring real-time access to patient data. eFax Unite also allows providers to attach faxed documents to patient records with minimal setup and eliminates manual clerical data entry, enabling staff to focus on analyzing the data, not entering it into the system. 

The Future of EHR Interoperability

The COVID-10 pandemic highlighted the potential of EHR interoperability in managing public health emergencies, from detecting trends to tracking the spread of infectious diseases in real-time. The future looks equally as promising, with providers in Minnesota applying EHR data to monitor the impact of the drug overdose epidemic across racial and ethnic groups, helping to curb mortality spikes and improve healthcare equity. 

Emerging innovations and evolving policies are poised to further shape the future of interoperability, driving progress across the healthcare sector.

Innovations Driving Interoperability

The transition from paper fax to secure cloud fax technology, like eFax Corporate, has revolutionized healthcare communications and interoperability. It allows EHR data to be instantly converted into fax transmissions and sent securely to validated healthcare participants with just a click.

Digital documents also allow the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as Optical Character Recognition and Natural Language Processing (NLP), to convert unstructured data into structured, standardized formats that require minimal manual intervention. 

With eFax Unite, this data is stored, searched and shared more easily than ever before. A full-featured interface cleans up documents before attaching them to patient records and automatically extracts patient demographic data to easily attach it to the correct patient record in your EHR. 

Policy and Regulatory Trends

As we enter 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) advocates for digital health at the top of global health priorities, emphasizing the principles of EHR interoperability, transparency, accessibility and privacy. 

This goal goes hand-in-hand with the proposed policy and regulatory changes potentially brought on by a new presidential administration. Healthcare organizations must remain informed about updates to the HIPAA Privacy Rule, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act and the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule to ensure ongoing compliance. 

Achieve True EHR Interoperability with eFax Unite 

EHR interoperability plays a vital role in bettering patient outcomes, improving healthcare operations and empowering patients. However, achieving true interoperability comes with challenges. These obstacles can be overcome with eFax Unite, a secure solution to streamline data exchange and strengthen connectivity. 

eFax Unite powers interoperability through an easy-to-use platform that unifies communication and upgrades clinical workflows across the continuum of care. Request a demo today to achieve true EHR interoperability.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager

Managing patient information is more complex than ever. Healthcare practices are dealing with more data, stricter rules and rising security risks tied to outdated software and manual processes. For many providers, moving to digital records isn’t just smart, it’s necessary to stay current and remain compliant in today’s increasingly cyber-connected world. 

Electronic medical records (EMRs) and electronic health records (EHRs) are at the center of this shift. But what are the key differences between EHR and EMR systems? How do they compare when it comes to features, data access and provider benefits? In this guide, we’ll break down the basics of EHR vs. EMR systems to help you choose the right fit for your practice.

EHR vs. EMR: Defining Their Roles in Healthcare

EMR vs. EHR: what is the difference, and why does it matter? While some people may use the terms interchangeably, the differences between EHR and EMR are significant. EHRs offer a more complete view across providers, while EMRs focus on records within a single practice. Here’s what each one means:

What is an EMR?

EMR stands for electronic medical record. It’s a digital version of a patient’s chart and includes detailed medical history, diagnoses, treatment plans, prescriptions, immunization dates, allergies and lab results. EMRs are for internal use within a healthcare organization and act like electronic replicas of paper records. 

EMRs often operate on legacy systems or are built into proprietary platforms, focusing on intra-organizational operations. The information can’t be shared with external parties and doesn’t support communication with systems outside the originating organization. While an EMR may automate processes within an organization, it often requires manual processes for data sharing with third parties.

What is an EHR?

EHR stands for electronic health record. It covers most EMR functionalities while enabling patient data exchange across various healthcare organizations. It integrates patient records into a unified, interoperable system and supports a patient-centric approach to care delivery. The records allow authorized providers, hospitals, laboratories and specialists to access all health information in one place to gain a holistic view of a patient’s care.

EHR systems use interoperability standards like HL7 FHIR and APIs for seamless communication among disparate systems. They integrate with third-party applications (e.g., clinical decision support tools and patient engagement platforms) to ensure real-time access to the latest patient data while complying with strict security protocols such as HIPAA and HITRUST.

EHR vs EMR: What Are the Key Differences?

EMR and EHR systems vary significantly in terms of scope and accessibility. They also differ in how they support patient engagement and regulatory compliance. Let’s delve into the nuances:

Scope and Functionality

An EMR system is an internal system for keeping patient records for a single healthcare organization. It doesn’t integrate with external systems or support data sharing across different facilities or providers. This limited setup highlights a key difference between EHR and EMR systems: EMRs are more narrow in scope.

In contrast, an EHR system encompasses a broader healthcare ecosystem and aggregates data from multiple providers. It gives providers a full view of a patient’s history and supports enhanced features like care coordination across facilities and predictive analytics for population health. This wider reach is a major EHR vs. EMR difference that healthcare teams should consider when weighing potential solutions (more on this below).

Accessibility and Interoperability

EMR systems often rely on proprietary formats, which can make sharing information with outside providers difficult. They typically require custom setups to enable even basic clinical data exchange. This slows communication, drives up costs and can create gaps in patient care. EHR systems, on the other hand, are built to support interoperability in healthcare. They use standards like HL7 FHIR to enable seamless, secure sharing across different platforms. 

For even greater connectivity, healthcare organizations can integrate solutions like eFax Unite™. It automates and simplifies clinical data exchange by routing all incoming files—from faxes to PDFs—into a single intake process, turning unstructured documents into structured data ready for the EHR.

Patient Engagement

When comparing EHR systems vs. EMR, one clear difference is how they support patient engagement. EMR tools are mostly provider-focused. They can document visits and treatment plans, but few offer patients access to their records or ways to take part in their care.

In contrast, EHR systems include patient-centric features like portals where users can view their medical records, schedule appointments and communicate with their providers. For example, eFax Unite helps enhance the patient experience by enabling secure direct messaging between care providers and patients.

Compliance and Regulations

Both EMRs and EHRs must adhere to strict regulations like HIPAA to ensure the secure handling of protected health information (PHI). However, many legacy EMR tools still rely on manual data exchange processes to move information into and out of the software, which can increase risks and raise concerns around patient data security.

That’s why EHR systems use built-in safeguards and interoperability tools to support secure patient data transfer throughout the automated process. Pairing an EHR with tools like eFax Unite adds even more protection. With HIPAA-compliant, HITRUST CSF-certified features and a DirectTrust framework, eFax Unite ensures sensitive data is shared securely while keeping communication fast and efficient.

Advantages and Limitations of EMRs and EHRs in Healthcare

Choosing between EHR vs. EMR systems will ultimately impact healthcare data management for your practice. Below are the key benefits and limitations of each option to help you decide which fits best:

Advantages of EMRs

EMRs are typically simpler to manage, especially for smaller practices with limited resources. They deliver a focused set of functionalities and are best for streamlining in-house operations to improve administrative tasks like scheduling, billing and documentation. In most cases, EMRs are less complex and faster to deploy because they don’t require integration with other systems.

Advantages of EHRs

EHRs offer comprehensive interoperability to connect multiple systems and organizations for seamless data exchange across a patient’s care continuum. They aggregate data from various providers into a unified view of a patient’s health history, helping reduce duplicate tests, improve decision-making and minimize the risks of drug interactions. They often have built-in functions to ensure compliance with standards like HIPAA and HITRUST. Additionally, they provide robust analytics to help identify trends, predict treatment outcomes and enhance preventive care efforts in population health initiatives.

Limitations of EMRs and EHRs

EMRs lack interoperability, making data sharing with external providers challenging. The limited integration capabilities often lead to manual data entry, increasing errors and reducing efficiency. Additionally, these solutions may not scale to meet growing data-sharing needs as your practice grows or joins networks.

EHRs are often more complex to implement and maintain, requiring significant IT resources. The vast amounts of integrated data may make it challenging to sift through the information to find actionable insights. The transition to an EHR often requires comprehensive staff training and change management, while the learning curve may slow down processes during the adoption phase.

Choosing Between EMR and EHR: Practical Applications in Healthcare

The EHR vs. EMR choice depends on your organization’s needs, size and goals. Use the points below to help determine which system makes the most sense for your workflow: 

When to Use an EMR System

An EMR may be sufficient for organizations that don’t need to share patient data with external entities, or smaller practices with limited patient volume, looking for a simple solution to handle internal documentation. It may support specialized care and niche service providers that require a focused workflow. Some practices may use an EMR due to cost or compatibility concerns with upgrading to advanced systems.

When to Use an EHR Solution

An EHR is indispensable for coordinating care across multiple settings and facilitating data sharing among external parties. It supports integrated health networks where hospitals, multi-specialty practices and accountable care organizations (ACOs) must exchange real-time data to ensure care continuity. For example, an EHR integrated with eFax Unite allows patient data queries with Carequality.

An EHR supports population health management with trend analytics across patient populations. Providers can use the insights to manage chronic conditions, track vaccination rates or assess treatment plan efficacy. Additionally, healthcare organizations that seek to implement patient-centric care delivery should use an EHR. Tools like patient portals empower patients to access their medical records, view lab results and communicate with providers, encouraging them to become involved in their care plans.

5 Key Factors to Consider When Selecting an EHR or EMR System

Choosing the right EMR/EHR solution isn’t one-size-fits-all. These systems are key to efficient healthcare operations, so it’s important to evaluate them based on your practice’s unique needs.

1. Match the System to Your Practice’s Needs

The best healthcare software solutions fit the size of your practice, your specialty and your workflow. When selecting an EHR vs. EMR solution, look for a system that meets your immediate needs but can also scale with you over time. Whether you’re a solo provider or part of a large group, flexibility and customization options will help the platform grow with your organization.

2. Focus on Features and Ease of Use

The next step when comparing an electronic health record vs. electronic medical record system is to pay attention to key features. For instance, for an EHR, these may include patient scheduling, charting, billing, lab integration and reporting. Ease of use is just as important—your staff should be able to navigate the platform without a steep learning curve. A simple interface helps improve efficiency and reduces training time.

3. Prioritize Integration and Interoperability

EMR/EHR systems should support seamless communication across healthcare systems. Beyond easy-to-use features, your chosen solution must integrate with labs, pharmacies and other providers to enable smooth, real-time data sharing. Strong interoperability improves care coordination and helps reduce duplicate work. This is essential for practices aiming to streamline operations and maintain continuity of care across multiple settings.

4. Evaluate Vendor Experience and Support

At this point, you should narrow your vendor selection process down to those with proven experience in the healthcare space. Look for one that follows strict data security standards and offers HIPAA-compliant tools. Likewise, ask about training resources and technical support to ensure your staff is fully prepared. A strong partner will provide reliable onboarding, updates and service long after implementation.

5. Consider Total Cost and Return on Investment (ROI)

Lastly, review the total cost of a potential EMR/EHR system. Remember to factor in both upfront and ongoing expenses, such as licensing, maintenance and training. And while price matters, consider the long-term return as well. The right system can reduce paperwork, shorten billing cycles and support better patient care. A smart investment will save time, boost productivity and improve your bottom line.

Transitioning from EMR to EHR: Why and How to Make the Change

More healthcare organizations are moving from EMRs to EHRs to support their growth trajectory. To reap the most benefits and minimize disruption, providers must take steps to ensure a seamless transition. 

The Benefits of Upgrading to an EHR

Many healthcare organizations transition to EHRs as they scale or join networks to enable seamless patient data exchange with other providers. EHRs offer interoperability standards and tools to streamline care coordination and help organizations comply with evolving healthcare regulations. For example, secure data transfer is essential for HIPAA compliance, while data-sharing capabilities support adherence to the 21st Century Cures Act.

EHRs can better support multi-location practices or organizations with complex care delivery models like ACOs. They offer robust integration and automation features to help improve operational efficiency. They also reduce long-term costs associated with manual data handling, delays, redundancies and compliance penalties.

Moreover, EHRs provide a holistic view of a patient’s history to support accurate decision-making. They offer patient portal functionalities, allowing patients to access their health information to foster communication and trust. The improved patient experience empowers users to become more involved in their care plans, leading to better treatment outcomes.

How to Orchestrate a Successful Transition

Transitioning from an EMR to an EHR is a substantial undertaking. Here are the key steps to achieve the best outcomes:

1. Conduct a System Audit

Evaluate your EMR’s limitations to identify gaps and create a list of features you need in the new EHR. Also, catalog the data types and formats stored in the EMR (e.g., structured text, scanned documents, images) to determine migration requirements.

2. Select an EHR Platform

Evaluate your options’ integration capabilities and select an EHR that supports standards like HL7 FHIR for seamless data exchange. Also, use a solution that enables you to build a multi-tool ecosystem. For example, you may integrate eFax Unite with an EHR to streamline data ingestion from multiple sources and enhance data management.

3. Plan and Execute Data Migration

Map data fields in the EMR to corresponding ones in the EHR. These include patient demographics, clinical notes and medication histories. Also, automate data conversion whenever possible. For instance, you may use AI and natural language processing (NLP) tools to convert unstructured data (e.g., scanned faxes or free-text fields) into structured formats for EHR consumption. Conduct test migrations to identify issues like data mismatches or incomplete transfers before the transition.

4. Evaluate Infrastructure and Technical Readiness

Verify that your existing hardware and third-party systems can support the EHR. Consider upgrading network bandwidth and security protocols to handle increased data exchange demands.

5. Provide User Training and Optimize Workflows

Train staff on EHR functionalities, building on their knowledge of the EMR system and addressing new functions like automated data ingestion, patient portal management and interoperability features. Additionally, redesign workflows when necessary to fully leverage newfound EHR capabilities, such as automated referral management, care coordination and reporting.

6. Orchestrate a Phased Rollout

Start with a pilot phase and roll out the EHR to a subset of users or departments to identify challenges, resolve issues and gather feedback. Monitor performance metrics like data exchange latency, user error rates and patient satisfaction to inform targeted improvements before the organization-wide launch.

Building a Robust Multi-Tool Ecosystem with eFax Corporate and eFax Unite

Creating a connected multi-tool ecosystem around your EHR is key to improving data exchange, interoperability and overall efficiency. That’s why eFax Corporate® was designed to integrate seamlessly with eFax Unite, offering a unified platform for capturing and managing patient data across various sources, formats and workflows. This setup empowers healthcare professionals to streamline communication, reduce manual work and focus more on care delivery.

eFax Corporate is a HITRUST r2-certified (risk-based, 2 year) digital fax solution that supports secure, HIPAA-compliant transmission without the hassle of paper faxing. Meanwhile, eFax Unite provides a single interface for managing data exchange across communication channels. It can automatically parse, structure and route documents from eFax Corporate directly into the EHR system.

Together, these tools automate workflows, eliminate redundant processes and help prevent delays or data entry errors. They also support secure data exchange that meets HIPAA, HITRUST and other healthcare standards. Most importantly, by transforming unstructured fax data into structured formats, this multi-tool ecosystem gives clinicians quicker access to actionable insights.

The Future of Patient Data Management

While EMRs have their use cases, EHRs’ scalability and interoperability make them the obvious choice for healthcare providers that need to support seamless data exchange with external organizations and automate processes to enhance staff productivity. Additionally, EHRs integrate with advanced data management tools like eFax Unite, which improves data management and fluidity critical for modern healthcare practices.

Kamran Shafii

Content Manager