Ramsey, NJ and Boise, ID – July 25, 2017 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions USA, Inc. (Konica Minolta), ranked #1 in customer loyalty in the multifunction printer (MFP) office copier market for 10 consecutive years, and recipient of the first annual BLI Health System Pacesetter Award, today announced that it has expanded its partnership with Kno2™, the company that optimizes patient document exchange for everyone in healthcare. The partnership fortifies Konica Minolta’s leading role in delivering meaningful electronic connectivity in healthcare as a much-needed replacement for fax. Konica Minolta integrates Kno2’s interoperability platform into the bizhub® MFP control panel as a core function under the option “Share Patient Information.”
Traditionally, the convenience and ease of use of faxing capabilities in office imaging equipment reduced the incentive for healthcare organizations to transition to interoperable patient document exchange. As a prominent distributor of office imaging devices within the healthcare industry, Konica Minolta recognizes that this continued reliance on paper faxes interferes with the goal of widespread secure data exchange between all providers within the patient journey. As such, the company continues to invest in alternative document exchange solutions and is committed to eliminating fax as the default method of exchange in healthcare. The Konica Minolta healthcare MFP, connected by Kno2, facilitates connectivity within the healthcare network, instantly transforming clinical documents into usable, relevant and structured patient documentation within normal workflows. The result is that documents are compatible with electronic medical records (EMRs), solving interoperability at the source, the MFP.
Healthcare legislation, changing reimbursement models and quality reporting require effective, efficient and secure sharing of patient documents. The Konica Minolta healthcare MFP is engineered specifically to address these driving forces for healthcare providers that are not connected due to the following challenges: 1) paper-based patient charting system of records, 2) non-certified EMR implementation, or 3) lack of connectivity due to delayed capital-intensive technology investments.
“Healthcare providers understand the costs and risks associated with faxing, yet it remains the habitual technology to exchange medical information in healthcare,” said Jon Elwell, CEO of Kno2. “The Konica Minolta healthcare MFP makes it simple and affordable for care providers to get connected, share interoperable content, reduce costs and mitigate HIPAA-violation risks.”
Konica Minolta is the platform for connected care. Thousands of healthcare organizations rely on Konica Minolta for the security, efficiency, innovation, and quality that propels them into the future of healthcare. We have assisted organizations across the country improve their ability to more securely and efficiently share patient information, especially in the post-acute, extended care community where technology adoption has not been as rapid as in the hospital and physician clinic segments. This is an exciting step in our journey to improve interoperability, and will be followed soon with a solution meant for the hospital environment to enhance their current use of secure, Direct messaging.
“We listened to our customers’ demands for meaningful connectivity throughout the healthcare continuum, which is why we are able to place thousands of our MFPs into healthcare organizations every year,” said Kevin Kern, senior vice president, Konica Minolta. “Our partnership with Kno2 enables us to provide the connectivity our healthcare customers require – all within their normal workflows. Now our solutions can help providers deliver the right information, at the right place, at the right time and in the right format to drive better care coordination and improved patient outcomes. Better still, it does so without the need for heavy IT infrastructure or knowledge, allowing healthcare organizations of any size to take advantage of the technology.”
Healthcare represents a large vertical market for Konica Minolta. Focused on connecting the community of care, Konica Minolta has invested further in adding its relevant and differentiated Konica Minolta healthcare MFP to its portfolio, thus fortifying the distribution partners’ growth initiatives and positioning them to more easily capture incremental market share. Connecting care providers establishes the footprint upon which Konica Minolta’s distribution partners will sell additional healthcare document-related solutions.
