Security, efficiency, visibility and operational control over payments are critical to effective business management. Enterprises require an integrated platform that supports internal processes to produce instant, useable analyses and pricing trend forecasts for our organizations.

Further, in today’s increasingly globalized business environment, the need for compliant and secure platforms to manage international payments becomes more urgent. But what keeps enterprises from reaching this unified, platform-based approach to processing global payments? Often, fragmented back offices and mono-payment engines (whether those engines are housed internally or at the bank) lead to complexity, a lack of automation and significant operational risk. The innovation, automation, and analytical capability that savvy treasury and finance professionals demand today requires a different approach.

Payment gateways can normalize, analyze, and trulyenable the payment. Global payment gateways are designed to simplify consolidation of domestic payment multi-media (checks, cash reporting, ACH, wires, card) and also multi-national payments, which of course are subject to currency reconciliations, exchange rates, and other variables.

Stakeholders evaluating potential platforms should look for a solution that checks each item off the list below effectively:

• Reduced Costs
• Improved information management
• Real-time reporting and analytics
• Improved risk management
• Bank agnostic strategic payment independence
• Increased control, compliance & governance

An optimally efficient payment gateway must bethe main, centralized “hub” that enables straight-through processing (STP) for accuracy, real-time information availability, and improved risk management. This means integration with the financial processes like accounts receivable and payable (AR & AP). By leveraging such an approach, organizations with disparate payment methods and distributed operations can lower routing costs and achieve higher data security for cleaner posting.

Enterprises that take such an approach instantly distribute payment messaging to the accountable party in their organization. Other key features can include multi-channel payment capabilities, invoice consolidating, process automation for presentment, and accurate, real-time cross-border currency conversion. As mentioned, some of these online, true “payment hub” platforms can integrate with current company operations. Because of their cloud-based, online nature, the gateway provider can offer real-time support, an inventory of best practices, and easy-to-update approaches.

Utilities and insurance companies have been among the first to reap the benefits of implementing a payment gateway/payment hub. The proof that their efforts and the upfront costs are paying off, is a look at their “before and after” payment flows, as well as reviewing their unit costs in processing payments. EVERY project has a winning ROI, and thus, now is time for the entire finance, treasury and payment industry to leverage this experience.

On August 28, the Center for Early Diagnostics and Therapy of Children with Hearing Impairments in Belgrade, Serbia (“Children’s House”) held a ceremony during which Exela proudly donated $27,000 worth of medical equipment purchased using the generous donations of Exela employees. Expressing her deepest gratitude, Dr. Sandra Stojanovic, the Director of Children’s House, noted that although Children’s House continues to face many challenges, the donated equipment will make an enormous difference.

Find out all about the work Children’s House is doing for children with hearing impairments.

The donated equipment includes both a brand new audiometer and a brand new typanometer. It was raised through the Exela’s #ExelaGivesBack philanthropy program, under which Exela matches employee charitable donations dollar for dollar. The portion attributable to the efforts of Exela employees was raised in connection with the 42nd Palisades Will Rogers™ 5K 10K run held on July 4, 2029. Our hope was to raise $15,000, so we are absolutely thrilled with how this turned out.

Note:

Exela’s global presence (basically, we’re everywhere) means two very important things to us. One is that we are wherever you need us to be to advance your digital journey. The other is that we care. We care about people and the work we do. And we care about the future of planet earth and the people who live here. Through our #ExelaGivesBack philanthropy initiative, we turn caring into action.

“As banks scramble to meet consumers’ changing banking expectations, they struggle with legacy system integration,” writes Cisco Liquido on June 10, 2019 in the ABA Banking Journal. “Vendors are added one at a time, one bank acquires another, new systems are tacked on to old ones to address evolving problems, and the result can be a mess of disconnected systems, redundant processes and excessive documentation.”

Cisco Liquido is Exela’s Vice President for Business Strategies, and he understands the pain points that challenge banks as they grow and transform to meet consumers’ expectations. Read on as he talks about how poorly designed systems integrations lead to “document sprawl,” with all its redundancies, inefficiencies, and risks, and then proposes a methodology for avoiding the problem in the first place. For more of Cisco’s incisive thought leadership, check out this piece on

Read the rest of the article here.

For more on the latest banking thought leadership, check out the ABA Banking Journal.

For more up-to-the-minute Exela news, bookmark the Exela Blog. To learn more about Exela’s rapidly deployable business process automation solutions, check out our Solutions page.

Gartner research shows that 43 percent of enterprises that experience a substantial loss of business-related data, with no continuity plan on the books, never resume business operations again. Another 51 percent of those that do manage to re-open their doors after a major loss of data, close within the next two years after an incident.

The historic flooding seen in the Houston, TX area in late August serves as a stark reminder of the importance of having an effective business continuity plan (BCP) that can mitigate the types of consequences described above.

While most enterprises have at least a rudimentary plan in place, it can be difficult to determine how expansive the parameters of a BCP need to be.

Such an exercise requires business managers to consider exactly what ways a substantial disruption to their operations will impact them. Will it disrupt digital communications? Or impact other technology-based workflows like enrollments and application processing? What about on-site or near-site production facilities? Stakeholders must also determine how to protect electronic payment systems and other data-driven platforms in the event of a major disaster.

Putting together such a plan can be difficult for even the most experienced business leaders, but as we were all reminded with Harvey – it is a base that every business simply must have covered.

While daunting, there is no better time than the present to take the necessary steps to prevent your enterprise from losing irreplaceable data, processing incoming payments, producing outbound communications, and performing any number of other mission-critical, time-sensitive tasks during and after a major disruption – weather-related or not.

To help you narrow the scope, here are three concepts to consider and include in your BCP to ensure it encompasses the areas you’ll need to keep critical processes flowing during a disruption. These steps can help you resume operations after a flood, tornado, or other event that causes damage to your offices or facilities, or causes you to shut them temporarily.

1) Off-Site Data Storage for Mission Critical Information

As an increasing amount of business processes became digitally based in the ‘90s and into the 2000s, many continuity plans featured models that relied on off-site data centers to back up data that was generated over time. But building a secondary data storage site internally can be quite costly, and ensuring consistent back up can be difficult, and involve manually collecting and sending data to an off-site data storage location.

Due to the cost and complexity involved in operating such a program, many businesses simply operated without a comprehensive BCP. But, cloud-based data storage has shifted this paradigm to a more user-friendly model.

Cloud-based business continuity solutions now allow service providers with the right internal capability and IT architecture to offer best-class continuity capability at an affordable rate. Other benefits of such an approach include:

• Easier Access: With this type of solution, you’ll be able to access your password-protected files from any internet-connected computer – even if your office or other facilities are unreachable
• Attractive Pricing Options: With no capital expense involved, contract-based subscription pricing keeps total cost of ownership affordable
• Scalability: Traditional data centers can reach capacity. But with a cloud-based solution, increasing (or decreasing) the amount of data storage you require can be changed on-demand

2) Access to Off-Site Operations Production Centers

A best-class continuity solution will not only store your data in the event of a disruption, but it will allow you to continue leveraging said data during your recovery period – which as we have seen in Houston, may be quite lengthy. Depending on the harshness of the event, moving certain operations and mission-critical processes to an alternate site may be required. One way to help avoid extended periods of downtime for other processes, such as customer or internal employee communications, is to leverage a Disaster Recovery as a Solution service that includes not only cloud-based data storage but access to such facilities as well.

With this type of solution included within your BCP, the benefits regarding comprehensive continuity for a myriad of mission-critical processes become apparent. If your data is stored in the cloud, and you have a process support partner retained who can not only store that information, but effectively manage it to create and send communications – multiple, critical processes can resume quickly. Even if your facilities are shuttered for a lengthy period, both your data and ability to communicate with customers and employees in their preferred manner, are backed-up.

3) Cloud-Based Processing Support for On-Going Account Management

Effective business communication is a two-way street. This means you’ll need to include a way to continually process invoices, submitted applications, or enrollment forms as just a few examples, during a disruption.

Cloud-based gateways to transact, collaborate, and manage these types of processes provide several obvious benefits, but these become even more pronounced in the event of a disaster. Operating a cloud-based platform to process these types of incoming documents not only provides a more secure, paperless manner to do so during normal operation – but delivers the sort of anywhere-access that business managers need when their office is unexpectedly closed due to an adverse event. If your payment platform resides in the cloud, you’ll be able to log in from a secure location, and from there, effectively send, receive, approve or refer invoices while your physical office location is affected.

If all of this sounds costly or overwhelming to create internally, that’s because a comprehensive BCP is something that will by nature include robust back-ups for business-critical processes. It can be wise to partner with someone who already has the cloud-based and physical infrastructure you’ll need to continue operations during an event that disrupts your business.

Cognitive automation (CA) refers to leveraging artificial intelligence to train machines to perform judgment-based tasks. Whereas robotic process automation (RPA) supports completion of a high volume of rule-based tasks in a relatively short amount of time (relative to what a human could do), CA goes a step beyond by using artificial intelligence to approximate the human thought process. In other words, through more innovative uses of artificial intelligence, CA expands the universe of tasks machines can do to include those that would seem to require reason and judgment.

Cognitive automation technology enables us to obtain information from scattered sources, conduct deep analysis, and collaborate more easily and on a scale and at speeds that far exceed the capacity of humans,” explains Srini Murali, Exela’s President in a recent work article he authored for the technology information resource, ReadWrite[1], in which he provides a wide variety of CA use-cases that span multiple industries. Here are three that we think really drive the point home:

Healthcare

In the context of patient care, cognitive automation can help healthcare providers diagnose a patient who presents with a seemingly disparate set of complaints that don’t seem to add up to a clear-cut differential diagnosis. CA solutions can sift through those complaints and read through the patient’s case and health history in mere seconds and then compare all of that to a full range of diagnostic criteria to come up with an accurate diagnosis (or at least a recommendation for tests that should be administered to further get to the bottom of the medical mystery).

For a more in-depth exploration of how leveraging technology can significantly improve the current inefficient state of the U.S. healthcare system, you’ll want to download our Q4 edition of PluggedIN, Exela’s quarterly thought leadership publication: Tell Us Where it Hurts: How High-Tech Can Heal Healthcare.

Get PluggedIN Now

Marketing

In the context of marketing, Murali describes how a law firm might use cognitive automation to monitor Federal, state, and local court systems, not merely for events (case filings, for example) but also for patterns (a large influx of a certain genre of case filing, for example) that can predict business opportunities such as class actions. “Given there are tens of thousands of daily updates to case files,” he notes, it would be “nearly impossible” to efficiently differentiate between “good” leads and “bad” without leveraging CA, which can then go even a step further by automatically notifying interested stakeholders.

Project Management

In the context of project management, cognitive automation tools can enable real-time collaboration across time zones and among employees all over the world. “By analyzing real-time data,” Murali adds, “machine learning systems will soon be able to alert managers to issues with ongoing projects before they occur.

Learn more about how Exela’s solutions leverage the most advanced capabilities of robotic process automation (RPA) and CA to transform your business processes into automated, efficient, and intelligent workflows.

[1] https://readwrite.com/about/

The novel coronavirus isn’t just impacting world health. It’s impacting global sales,[1] global travel,[2] and the global economy in general.[3]It’s even given way to an unfortunate “infodemic” of fake news that even the World Health Organization is attempting to dispatch with due haste.[4] But there is a silver lining. With necessity as the eternal mother of invention, the coronavirus has become a veritable muse for innovation, with a number of biotech companies racing the clock to pinpoint treatments and vaccines,[5] and reduce diagnostic turnaround time,[6] leveraging AI (artificial intelligence), advanced data analytics, and other relatively cutting edge technologies.[7]

But it appears the most frequently searched question about coronavirus doesn’t relate to how (how it’s diagnosed, how it is treated, how it runs its course). Rather, the question on everyone’s mind appears to be where -- as in where is the disease right now (dovetailing with one of 2019’s most-searched questions, “Where is Hurricane Dorian, right now?[8]). As one might expect, this question has sparked its own flurry of innovators seeking to come up with the ultimate “coronavirus disease tracker.” Not surprisingly, the results have been prolific, but today, we’d like to shout out to these three entries into disease-tracker innovation race:

Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus (COVID-19) Global Cases tracker

On January 22, 2020, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering launched what is likely the most highly respected and highly-referenced coronavirus disease tracker thus far. Tracking the spread of the illness in real-time, the tracker lives; here, with data visualizations available for download. The Johns Hopkins tracker draws from a panoply of trustworthy sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NHC), linking to a downloadable Google Sheet containing information for cities and nations throughout the world, including the United States. As of the time of writing of this Exela Blog post, the tracker has reported more than 75,750 infections and 2,130 deaths as attributable to the coronavirus, although an information session held this week at Johns Hopkins University suggested the infection rate may be higher because the rate reflects only those who have sought medical attention, and not everyone who gets sick will see a healthcare provider. Accordingly, the fatality rate is likely lower than the 2% indicated by the tracker.

Hashlog by Acoer

Blockchain-enabled applications developer Acoer has created a coronavirus disease tracker called HashLog, which pulls data from the CDC and WHO and then leverages real-time distributed-ledger technology[9] (which is what Blockchain uses) to understand the spread of the virus and its trends over time. Despite being less well-known than Johns Hopkins’ tracker, HashLog has drawn interest from public health officials at federal and state levels in the United States, in part because its dashboard is unique and easy for the user to digest, which is something of which we understand the importance here at Exela. For example, an intuitive dashboard distinguishes the fulfillment solution, we developed for Exela Smart Office, as a tool for tracking shipments, receivables, and other delivery logistics.

“Track Corona Live” by four students from the University of Virginia

“Four high school friends from Virginia are pooling their talents to inform the world about the new corona virus – helping people to track its spread and to learn how they can protect themselves,” Virginia’s Public Radio recently reported.[10] The students report that due to the above-referenced infodemic , their biggest challenge has been getting the correct, most up-to-date data. Thus far, they have managed to leverage data from the CDC, WHO, the National Institutes of Health NIH and a website used by Chinese healthcare professionals to create an online dashboard where visitors can track the disease in near real time. But their plans extend beyond tracking the coronavirus. “Right now we’re actually working on building out a machine learning model that bases off of past virus data – like SARS, MERS as well as past,” in the hopes of predicting the spread of future epidemics.

Ultimately, while we are deeply concerned about the spread of the coronavirus, we’re also excited by the innovation it is inspiring. At Exela, we believe that public health and technology go hand-in-hand. Read about all that technology can do to heal healthcare’s inefficiencies in our most recent edition of PluggedIN, Exela’s quarterly thought-leadership news magazine.

[1]https://news.yahoo.com/china-car-sales-fall-92-105126677.html

[2]https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/21/business/coronavirus-airline-travel.html

[3]https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-futures-slip-as-coronavirus-death-toll-outside-of-china-rises-2020-02-20

[4]https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200202-sitrep-13-ncov-v3.pdf

[5]https://www.barrons.com/articles/biotech-stocks-china-coronavirus-vaccine-51580147139

[6]https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-tech-may-help-drastically-reduce-coronavirus-diagnostic-time-617796

[7]https://www.information-age.com/technology-help-fight-the-coronavirus-123487520/

[8]https://trends.google.com/trends/yis/2019/GLOBAL/

[9]https://www.businessinsider.com/distributed-ledger-technology-blockchain

[10]https://www.wvtf.org/post/uva-students-track-coronavirus#stream/0

Since mid-March, 88% of organizations around the world have encouraged or required at least some portion of their employees to work from home as a precautionary measure to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. 1 Many businesses were unprepared, either culturally or logistically, or both. Prior to the pandemic, some had been vocally opposed to the notion of remote work. While their reasons made good business sense at the time, for now and for the foreseeable future, the point has essentially been rendered moot. Other businesses had been open to offering remote work to their employees but had not yet put the infrastructure in place necessary to support it.

But even businesses with existing remote infrastructure were not necessarily ready for a scenario in which literally no one is in the office. That’s because having “no one in the office” means much more than simply directing everyone to “go home with a laptop and do your job.” For example:

- What about the employees who don’t have a company-approved laptop? (for why this is important, see How to Keep the Bad Guys Out: Cyber Security Best Practices).

- Who is going to open, sort and route the paper mail? Pandemic or no pandemic, the mail keeps coming. That includes bills, legal communications, and paper checks. For healthcare organizations, some paper mail is critical to cash-flow (e.g., medical forms and EOBs).

- Who is going to send the paper mail that needs to be sent?

- How will printed materials be made and distributed?

The bottom line is even companies with existing work-from-home infrastructure aren’t necessarily set up to function in these circumstances. We could go on identifying the pain points that go along with this novel scenario in which working from home is no longer a choice but rather a rule, but if you’re one of the many businesses for whom “missing work” is no longer just a matter of attendance, you already have a pretty fair idea of what you’re up against.

The good news: you’ve got this

Exela knows what you’re up against, and we’re here to tell you this is not merely doable, but actually in everyone’s best interests that the business world accelerate their digital transformation initiatives to accommodate remote work. While we would never have chosen for the business world to be subjected to this sort of remote-work trial-by-fire, we remain optimistic. That’s because solutions already exist that ensure business continuity even with no one in the office.

We know because we were already implementing those solutions for our customers long before the current pandemic.

And our customers were seeking those solutions because those solutions were, and remain good, for their business. But if you’re not yet there, that’s fine too. It’s not too late. In fact, wherever your business is in its digital transformation journey, this is the perfect time to finesse your remote work model. In this special COVID-19 issue of PluggedIN, we’re going to tell you why and we’re going to show you how. We hope that in so doing, we can offer you peace of mind as you face the challenges of the sudden call to remote work and look ahead with hope to a healthier future.

For more on this topic, don’t miss COVID-19: A Tipping Point for Remote Work, a special edition of PluggedIN, Exela's thought leadership news magazine, providing fresh insights from the cutting edge every quarter. We’re offering it absolutely free.

Subscribe. Plug in. Upgrade your mind.

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1. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-03-19-gartner-hr-survey-reveals-88--of-organizations-have-e

“Competitive advantage relies on keeping information (and processes) secure,” notes Mario Carneiro, Exela’s Manager of Data and Technical Security, so the first rule of data security is keep your data secure. That’s also the second rule of data security. That means doing whatever it takes to maintain the integrity of your systems and the data housed within.

Here’s why security is the transformation you should be talking about.

In addition, however, data security is governed by a complex web of laws, rules, regulations, and policies (for this purpose, we’ll refer to them collectively and individually as “rules”). The purpose of such rules is to prevent abuse of information to which an enterprise has access, Carneiro explains. Which rules apply depends upon the nature of the data being protected, the applicable industry, the unique characteristics of the company in question and even different departments within the company, and who and what has jurisdiction over the relevant company.

Many of the rules derive from statute (most of the acronyms you might be familiar with when it comes to rules refer to statutes), but some derive from common law (such as case law regarding privacy). Some of the rules (for example, rules arising under common law, the Data Privacy Act of 1974, and to some extent, HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) pre-date the current data breach boom that began around 2005.

The following rules apply primarily to enterprises governed by the laws of the U.S. and the European Union. For enterprises governed by the laws of their nations still more rules will apply.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology

A number of rules are based on, and comply with, the guidelines and standards issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a non-regulatory agency that is part of the United States Department of Commerce, whose mission is advancing security standards in the interest of promoting U.S. innovation and competition. These include:

• FISMA - the U.S. Federal Information Security Management Act, which requires implementation of information security controls, including periodic risk assessments and security awareness training, in each case using a risk-based approach. FISMA applies to all federal government agencies, state agencies that administer federal programs, and private companies that support federal programs, sell services to the federal government, or receive federal grant money.
• HIPAA, which imposes national standards for electronic health care transactions to guard the security and privacy of personal health information.
• FedRAMP, which is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to cloud security.
• HITRUST CSF – the HITRUST Common Security Framework, which is a set of standards put forth by a non-regulatory agency that nevertheless is intended to meet the requirements of multiple regulations and standards: which is a prescriptive set of controls that meet the requirements of multiple security rules, all pertaining to healthcare organizations and their business associates. HITRUST CSF is not only based on NIST, but compliance with it should ensure compliance with:
  • HIPAA (described above)
  • PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), which is a set of requirements for enhancing security of payment customer account data and is applicable to retailers, credit card companies, anyone handling credit card data.
  • ISO/IEC 27000-series (also known as the ‘ISMS Family of Standards’ or ‘ISO27K’ for short) comprises information security standards published jointly by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and provides best practice recommendations on the management of data security risks through data security controls.

Other rules

• GLBA - the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (also known as the Financial Modernization Act of 1999), which aims to protect consumers’ personal financial information held by financial institutions, and is applicable to financial institutions and companies providing financial products and services to consumers.
• VA 6500 – information security standards in connection with information stored in or accessible by the Veterans Administration. Security standards in connection with the Veterans Administration.
• IRS 1075 - encryption requirements for Federal Tax Information.
• EFTA – The Electronic Fund Transfer Act, dating back to 1978, protects consumers engaging in electronic fund transfers from errors and fraud and applies to financial institutions that hold consumer accounts or provide electronic fund transfer services, as well as to merchants and other payees.
• FACTA - The Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, enacted in 2003, amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act to help consumers avoid identity theft. It applies to financial institutions, credit bureaus, credit reporting agencies, any business using a consumer report, and any business that collects payments.
• GDPR – The General Data Protection Regulation consists of data security rules applicable to the U.K. and the E.U., and it dovetails with the Privacy Shield Framework with regard to transferring GDPR- governed data to the U.S.
• Directive (E.U.) 2016/1148 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2016, concerning measures for a “high common level of security of network and information systems across the Union.”
• Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2002/58/EC on Privacy and Electronic Communications (also known as the ePrivacy Directive, or ePD), which is an E.U. directive on EU data protection and privacy, which is currently in the process of being updated and aligned with the GDPR.
• FERPA – The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects the privacy of student education records and applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.

How to know which rule(s) apply to your enterprise

It’s not always obvious which rules might apply to your particular enterprise, and it gets even more complicated when you’re a global provider of services across multiple industries like Exela is. Accordingly, it’s always advisable to either have a compliance expert on staff or to have one with whom you consult regularly, not just on compliance but on record-keeping with regard to such compliance. As alluded to in here, that’s something you should be thinking about as part of your data security best practices. In addition, please be aware that Exela offers solutions to help keep you in compliance.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll be diving in to explore how system and data security dovetail with data privacy and all the laws and regulations with which your digital transformation provider should be compliant. We’ll also explore those security matters you’ll want to consider when choosing your digital transformation partner. If you missed the earlier posts in this series on cyber security, you can catch up here on:

• Why security is the transformation you should be talking about
• What we’re really talking about when we’re talking about security
• 21 Staggering Security Statistics Every Business Should Consider
• How the Bad Guys Get In: Cyber Attack Vectors
• How to Keep The Bad Guys Out: Cyber Security Best Practices

Gotta read it all now? You can download the entire series as a flipping-book here.

A Leap Into The Breach: Leveraging
Cybersecurity to Master Your Domain

In the future, be sure to subscribe to Exela’s quarterly thought leadership publication, PluggedIN for up-to-the-minute news and views on topics that matter to you.

The healthcare industry was undeniably one of the hardest hit by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. As case counts grew and hospitals filled, organizations struggled to keep up with the demand. This clearly demonstrated the need for increased efficiency and flexibility - both of which can be achieved with modern technology.

Today, companies, government agencies, and other organizations of all shapes and sizes are turning to digital solutions to help speed up manual processes. Yet the healthcare industry tends to lag a bit in this area. This is often because medical professionals are extremely cautious when it comes to changing anything that works, as lives are often on the line.

However, COVID-19 has shown that there are many facets of the healthcare industry that don’t work - at least not as well as they could or should. Hospitals and healthcare organizations are looking for smart solutions that can improve efficiency. And one of the solutions that has everyone’s attention is the Medical Record Management (MRM) system.

The Medical Record Management System to the Rescue

The traditional record management processes are slow, costly, and error-prone. A comprehensive MRM solution provides efficient document digitization, indexing and routing, all while maintaining secure physical and digital records storage. Under the given current COVID-19 crisis, hospitals are struggling due to limited resources and having a smart solution can free up the resources to take care of more important things.

Exela’s Medical Record Management system allows easy capture, organization, maintenance, and retrieval of patient's medical records. The MRM solution can digitize existing paper medical records, which are the primary source of information for healthcare purposes, including all clinical, legal, and administrative purposes. The system offers much better visibility and easier access, while enhancing security and maintaining strict privacy guidelines.

Digitizing medical records provides many benefits, including:

- Cost savings through a reduction in storage, staff required, and equipment needed

- Digital documents are less prone to damage from fires, floods, mold, and other accidents

- Retrieving records through MRM takes a few seconds, leading to faster document processing

- The system captures and highlights potential errors

The platform is developed with the importance of security in the healthcare industry in mind. Being compliant and secure, Exela’s MRM offers:

- NARA-approved (National Archives & Records Administration) physical record storage facilities

- Strict, role-based data access with multi-factor authentication

- Data encryption, both while in transit and while at rest

- Complete chain-of-custody tracking and audit trails

Final Thoughts

COVID-19 pushed medical organizations nearly to the breaking point. In the wake of such an unexpected disaster, it’s important to learn and improve. Digitizing medical records management is an accessible, safe, and easy way to start. Exela’s Medical Record Management system is a cost-effective strategy, offering immediate, cumulative benefits and can be deployed in as few as 10 days.

Learn more about Exela’s MRM solution.

Since COVID-19 was discovered in late 2019, it has spread to 213 countries and territories around the world,1 and has infected over 9 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As cases persist around the world, governments and organizations are focused on determining how to safely go on with our normal everyday activities.

This is certainly true at colleges and universities, with the fall semester fast approaching. Decisions have to be made quickly about the best course of action. Some are opting for another remote semester, some are attempting to physically reopen, while others are going with hybrid methods.

Reopening colleges and universities during the pandemic poses a special challenge, as younger people are accounting for an increasing number of cases.2 Still, it is critical for schools to find ways to provide suitable learning environments without leading to any resurgence of infection among the students and staff.

The abrupt transition to remote learning earlier in the year made for a rocky first attempt at educating amidst the pandemic. With a better understanding of the virus and how it spreads, as well as more time to develop and implement helpful solutions, schools are in a much better position to get back on track this semester.

While social distancing rules, mask guidelines, temperature checks, and increased sanitization will continue to play a big role in keeping students safe, there has also been a rush of technological innovation to develop solutions (or repurpose resources) that can promote on-campus health and safety. Here are some new technologies and smart solutions that can help universities provide a safer environment while also adding new conveniences and cost-saving opportunities.

Limit Physical Contact with Intelligent Lockers

One of the most important ways to slow the virus’s spread is by limiting physical contact. While much of the focus has been on how to achieve this in a classroom or lecture hall setting, typical campus life also includes opportunities for interaction in places like dorm buildings, libraries, and student centers. Smart locker systems like Exela’s Intelligent Lockers provide a versatile solution for reducing face-to-face contact in a variety of ways.

Contactless package delivery has become an enduringly popular option during the pandemic, and will likely remain so even after this is all over. Intelligent Lockers enable contactless delivery by offering a secure dropoff and pickup location where deliveries will be safe from would-be “porch pirates,” and retrievable via touchless access options like RFID chips in student and faculty IDs or QR codes sent to users’ smartphones.

Similarly, they can facilitate the safe handoff of library books or distribution of required class materials. Plus, their 24-hour access adds convenience for students while potentially reducing staffing costs for campuses facing new budget constraints. Smart locker solutions are streamlining package delivery making it more convenient for universities and students.

Smart Lobby and Visitor Management

Universities hoping to limit person-to-person contact can also benefit from automated check-in systems and virtual lobby support and various key points around campus. Libraries, administrative buildings, and student centers equipped with automated guest services technology like Exela’s Intelligent Kiosks can empower social distancing while still providing quality service and helpful information.

Smart technologies address issues and offer versatile solutions that can be used to digitize reception services at colleges and universities. Guests can check in, self-register, get directions, and print their guest badge with zero human interaction at reception.

Health Scanners and Apps

Technology has and is constantly evolving. With the pandemic crisis, many tech giants with the help of the government are developing applications that can track people's travel and medical history. Innovative solutions for quick and convenient temperature checks, like the use of thermal imaging cameras, can help keep school buildings safe and promote responsible distancing. Universities could also invest in contact tracing apps which would help track spread amongst students and contain potential outbreaks.

Innovative Solutions to Enhance Safety

The pandemic has enforced new rules that are likely to stick around and we must adapt ourselves to live cautiously. In a post-COVID world, the need for convenient and secure contactless services and solutions is only going to rise. If your organization faces these and similar challenges, but you are not yet discussing how to meet them, now is the time to start.

You can learn more about Exela's Intelligent Lockers that can provide a better experience for students and faculty on college campuses, check out what Exela did for George Washington University.

1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/countries-where-coronavirus-has-spread/
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/us/coronavirus-cases-young-people.html