Fax Featured Article

If you’re handling a complex situation involving multiple players, then you know the headaches of faxing and schlepping paper.

Imagine a case of identity theft. You discover, for example, that someone has opened a credit card account in your name. You contact the credit card company and the credit bureaus. You report the incident to the police, and you start dealing with individual retailers to fight each unauthorized charge. You may even hire an attorney.

After you enlist your entourage, you have to make sure that all of the parties cooperate. You hope that everyone will communicate, but you are the ultimate arbiter. You’re in charge of sending faxes, mailing documents and making phone calls on your own. Your time is gobbled up by a logistical nightmare.

Now imagine instead that you have your own personal cloud. You could store all of your forms, transaction records and correspondence virtually. Some of the players could have written access to your cloud, meaning that they could add documents, while others would have read-only access. Instead of fighting with your fax machine, you simply hit “Save.”

Currently, you’ll see a wide range of personal cloud providers on the market. Microsoft’s (News - Alert) SkyDrive, Google Docs and Dropbox are just some examples of services that allow you to store information virtually. The next step in evolution, however, should make the personal cloud into more than just a hard drive in the sky. Your personal cloud should be an accessible file folder that others can access according to parameters that you set up.

We see the potential for what the personal cloud could be when we look at electronic health records (EHRs). By virtually storing patient information, healthcare providers create a scenario that allows multiple doctors to have real-time knowledge of a patient’s medical history.

Instead of explaining to multiple doctors about their diagnoses, tests that have been performed or medications they are taking, patients can trust that their doctors have the information at their fingertips. Instead of calling doctors’ offices or faxing test results to hospitals, patients can concentrate on getting better.

What the cloud is doing for healthcare sets a standard for what personal cloud storage could do for every individual. It also sends the fax machine the way of the dinosaur.

To find out more about Commetrex (News - Alert) visit the company at ITEXPO West 2012 to be held Oct. 2-5 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX, ITEXPO (News - Alert)  is the world’s premier IP communications event. Visit Commetrex in booth # 722. For more information on ITEXPO West 2012, click here.