The trend toward digitalization is advancing on many fronts, including the Austrian healthcare sector. An important element in this digital transformation is ELGA, the Electronic Healthcare File (“Elektronische Gesundheitsakte” in German). ELGA lets patients and healthcare personnel centrally access and securely administer healthcare data including test results, discharge notes, medication lists, and other information. Using their ID Austria account, patients can access and check their data in convenient online form.
Major Milestone: 2025 Fax Prohibition
January 1, 2025 marked an important milestone in the trend toward digitalization, namely, the prohibition against sending healthcare information via fax. This measure should serve to improve efficiency and better protect sensitive healthcare data.
Implementing these new rules is a challenge for healthcare institutions, and numerous software solutions have been developed to address the new requirement. These include print drivers that directly transmit documents into reporting systems as well as secure web-mail solutions with special plugins for email programs. However, a common feature of all such approaches is that they assume the document is already in digital form.
The Digitalization Gap: Physical Paper
What happens with that information that is still in paper form – for example printed, signed, and/or handwritten lab results? Especially in the stressful day-to-day environments where caregivers and medical staff work, it is crucial that any new digital process be made as simple and efficient as possible.
“SecureFax” – Digitalization that Adapts to Everyday Life
One Austrian health agency took this requirement to heart. Working in conjunction with LRS, they embarked on an ambitious “SecureFax” project based on the proven VPSX solution from LRS. This innovative effort was aimed at seamlessly transitioning classic scan workflows into the modern digital infrastructure.
The agency’s device fleet consisted of more than 1100 multifunction devices of various makes and models throughout the organization’s network. After the “Secure Fax” workflow was implemented on these scan-capable devices, their employees had an intuitive user interface that enabled them to send scanned documents in a secure, simple, and legally compliant manner. All without additional administrative effort.
Look Into the Future
“SecureFax“ is a great example of how digitalization and healthcare can work together in a practical way that protects data while making life easier for front-line staff. With this successful project behind them, LRS and this healthcare customer are making plans for futher automating and optimizing administrative processes.