This 3 part series covers essential points of transitioning Communication Director to work with MEDITECH Expanse. While written for existing Communication Director and MEDITECH customers, some of the information here may also be valuable to those moving to MEDITECH for the first time or considering Communication Director as their report distribution software. Watch the short clip or read the written commentary on the subject.
My last two blog posts (found here and here) covered changes to expect when migrating Communication Director to MEDITECH Expanse, along with a sample timeline. The purpose of this post is to educate you on additional solutions that can enhance your new environment and maximize your overall investment.
Virtualization
The first area I’ll cover is virtualization. If you’re on an old version of Communication Director you’ll need to upgrade to the Communication Director 4 platform and you might as well look at virtualization. We have a couple of options:
- Traditional Fax Over IP software
- Cloud Faxing which provides true virtualization (no telephony)
Even if you’re just upgrading to version 4 with a current virtual system, you might want to consider Cloud Faxing. You can either completely replace Fax over IP or go with a hybrid system where you just use Cloud Faxing for the problem numbers. Cloud Faxing has the ability to manage some of these problem numbers (rural areas, etc.) that traditional faxing isn’t capable of doing.
Cloud Faxing is a newer offering with Communication Director and we’d be happy to answer any questions you have.
Inbound Fax Management
Customers migrating to MEDITECH Expanse may want to consider expanding their Communication Director capabilities to Inbound Fax Management. Inbound faxing with Communication Director allows you to go paperless by routing incoming faxes to either email or a folder location. You can specify the email address or folder location by the number dialed or the number the fax was sent from.
Rapidfiler
Another solution customers may want to consider is a Forward Advantage product called RapidFiler. RapidFiler further expands the paperless initiative by taking documents and providing the ability to move them all the way into the MEDITECH Echart without needing to print or scan the document. If you choose to leverage Inbound Fax, Communication Director can drop incoming faxes into a folder that’s managed by RapidFiler. Our integration with the Data Repository and ECM Filer makes it simple for us to get these documents into the chart.
Rapidfiler’s Workflow:
RapidFiler accepts documents from any application that can drop files to a network folder. This could be a third-party application like an imaging system or our Inbound Fax software. After the documents are in the folder, RapidFiler monitors them and gives users the ability to view and manipulate them. Users can remove cover pages, rotate pages, add notations and look up the associated patient from the MEDITECH Data Repository. When you are ready to send the document, RapidFiler creates a file with the metadata required by the MEDITECH ECM Filer. To see a walkthrough of the workflow, send an email to Caleb Richard, the Rapidfiler sales representative.
Bed Stat for MEDITECH Bed Board
Since MEDITECH Expanse includes some Bed Board functionality, the Forward Advantage solution called Bed Stat, which simplifies Bed Board updates, is another option to optimize Expanse. Bed Stat is a simple telephony interface that allows your Environmental Services group to use the telephones in patient rooms to update bed status within the MEDITECH Bed Board. End users do not need to know how to use MEDITECH or even have access to MEDITECH. They simply follow the promotes and key in numbers on the phone to automatically update bed status within Bed Board.
Conclusion
Working to make your move to MEDITECH Expanse as beneficial as possible is a huge undertaking. We’d love to help you leverage your investment in Expanse and Communication Director to meet your goals.
Reach out with any questions. We’re happy to help!
