Case Study: Oris Medical

The challenge: Saving time and keeping an eye on expenses

When a small start-up tech company needed to seamlessly integrate fax service solutions into the software platform they were creating, they turned to Interfax.

Oris Medical is a new software developer working on electronic medical recordkeeping, or EMR, systems. The company and its software developers didn't have time to develop a stand alone faxing platform into the program, so they turned to Interfax for help. The goal was to incorporate the Web-based faxing service into the platform, allowing developers to focus on areas of the platform where applications had to be developed from scratch.

Competitive industry demands cost containment

Oris is jumping into the crowded electronic medical record keeping field, which covers platforms that allow doctors' offices to do everything from schedule appointment to send medical transcription. Other applications that could require faxing capabilities include prescription writing, patient reminders, lab orders and referrals.

With 78 percent of the doctors in the United States in small practices of eight physicians or fewer, the goal of companies like Oris is to develop affordably priced products for the smaller offices. Just 17 percent of U.S. physicians have EMR capabilities - capabilities which can reduce errors and increase efficiency.

Even with the increased efficiency, the number one reason sited by doctors for not implementing electronic medical record keeping platforms is cost. A more expensive fax service would drive up the cost of a final product, meaning Oris had to find a service that was not only dependable, but easy to use.

With rates as low as seven cents a page, however, Interfax allowed Oris to keep costs contained for the faxing portion of its platform.

Ease of use factors in developer's decision

Arthur Fraser, the software developer who headed Oris Medical's development efforts, said the company looked at several fax services, but ultimately chose Interfax for the program. Interfax's services will primarily be used by the Oris EMR program to fax patient prescriptions to pharmacies.

"We just wanted something - a service - we could set up rather easily by just making a call," Fraser said. "We wanted something where (as a user) you could just call the fax service, authenticate yourself, attach the content and be done with it."

Developer registration at Interfax.net is free. The company's desire to work with developers pushes it beyond the scope of other, Web-based fax providers that typically target single users, or small groups of users. Interfax's commitments to helping users customize its services make them the appropriate choice for individual users all the way up to massive corporations.

Relying on providers with top-notch tech support

Fraser's team originally set up Interfax's services to run by sending and receiving documents in a Microsoft platform, but he said he will more than likely change the platform to work from .PDF documents. When Fraser and his team had difficulty integrating Interfax into their program, they found Interfax's tech support services to be both efficient and helpful.

"We were satisfied," he said. "They were prompt, and they very obviously knew the subject matter at hand."