Concord Unifies Healthcare Intake with AI-Powered Messaging Platform

SEATTLE, WA – March 09, 2026 – Concord Technologies today announced a significant expansion of its healthcare data platform, launching Concord Direct Message at the HIMSS26 conference. The move integrates Direct Secure Messaging (DSM) natively into its Concord Connect™ platform, transforming it into a unified intake solution designed to tame the torrent of patient information overwhelming healthcare organizations.

By combining DSM with its long-standing digital fax capabilities, Concord aims to address one of the most persistent and costly challenges in modern healthcare: the fragmented, manual, and error-prone process of receiving and processing patient data. The platform now applies artificial intelligence at the very first point of contact, creating a single, intelligent gateway for all inbound clinical and administrative information.

The Persistent Challenge of Fragmented Data Intake

For healthcare providers, the front door for patient information is rarely a single, orderly entrance. Instead, it’s a chaotic mix of channels, dominated by two prevalent but historically separate methods: the resilient digital fax and the modern, secure DSM. While DSM has seen significant growth—with over 309,000 healthcare organizations now using the secure protocol—its adoption has not eliminated the fax machine, which remains deeply embedded in workflows for referrals, orders, and records exchange.

This multi-channel reality creates significant administrative burdens. Staff must constantly monitor separate inboxes, manually triage documents, and re-enter data into Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems. This process is not only time-consuming—with studies showing administrative tasks consuming one to two hours for every hour a physician spends with patients—but it is also a major source of data entry errors, care delays, and staff burnout. Even as a secure digital standard, DSM can become just another silo, adding to the volume of messages that clinicians and administrators must manage without an integrated way to process the information they contain.

“Concord’s ability to intelligently receive and process both structured and unstructured data addresses one of healthcare’s most persistent challenges: fragmented intake workflows,” said Chris Larkin, Chief Technology Officer at Concord Technologies. This fragmentation means critical patient information can get stuck, delaying diagnoses, treatments, and reimbursements.

Unifying the Front Door with 'Practical AI'

Concord’s strategy is to unify these disparate channels into a single platform governed by intelligence. With the integration of DSM, Concord Connect™ now ingests information from both digital fax and secure messages into one user experience. From there, the company’s ‘Practical AI™’ engine takes over.

This AI-driven system is designed to automate the manual work that traditionally follows document receipt. Its key functions include:

• Automatic Classification: The AI instantly identifies the document type, whether it’s a patient referral, a lab result, a prior authorization request, or a medical history form.
• Intelligent Data Extraction: It then reads the document—including structured fields, unstructured text, and even handwritten notes—to pull out critical data points like patient names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, and clinical details.
• Data Standardization and Integration: The extracted information is standardized and prepared for seamless integration into the appropriate system of record, such as an EHR or a practice management system.

This end-to-end automation is what Concord calls ‘Straight-Through Processing.’ The goal is hands-off processing from the moment a document arrives until it is actionable within the destination system. For quality control, the AI assigns a confidence score to its work; items with lower confidence are flagged for a quick human review, ensuring accuracy without creating a new manual bottleneck. “By integrating multiple modalities like Digital Fax and DSM into a single platform, and single user experience, we’re enabling providers to triage and route patient information faster than ever before,” Larkin noted.

From Back-Office Efficiency to Better Patient Care

The impact of this automation extends far beyond administrative efficiency. By accelerating the flow of accurate information, unified intake platforms directly influence the quality and speed of patient care. When referrals, lab results, and patient histories are processed in near-real-time, clinicians can make faster, more informed decisions.

Real-world applications of Concord’s AI-powered workflows have already demonstrated tangible results. One Federally Qualified Health Center reported an 80% time savings in its medical-imaging process and achieved same-day turnaround for medication refills after implementing the system. Another partner, a radiology imaging firm, saw a 25% improvement in its scheduled-to-scan rate, a key metric reflecting the efficiency of turning an order into a completed patient scan.

These improvements translate into a better experience for both patients and providers. Patients face shorter waits for appointments and diagnoses, while clinicians gain a more complete and timely view of their patients’ health without being bogged down by data entry. This reduction in administrative burden is a critical step in combating the widespread issue of clinician burnout and allowing healthcare professionals to focus on their primary mission: patient care.

Navigating the Future of Healthcare Interoperability

Concord's platform enhancement arrives at a pivotal moment for the U.S. healthcare system, which is under increasing regulatory pressure to improve data sharing. The 21st Century Cures Act and its associated Information Blocking Rule mandate that providers and health IT vendors facilitate the access, exchange, and use of electronic health information. Solutions that break down data silos and automate exchange are no longer just a competitive advantage; they are becoming a requirement for compliance.

The industry is also slowly moving toward more advanced interoperability frameworks like TEFCA (Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement) and standards like FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources). While these promise a future of seamless data exchange, the reality today is a hybrid environment. Concord’s platform acts as a crucial bridge, capable of ingesting legacy formats like fax and converting their contents into the structured data needed to participate in this evolving, interconnected ecosystem.

“At Concord, our mission is to help build a faster, more connected healthcare ecosystem,” said William Cavanaugh, Chief Executive Officer. “By expanding the capabilities of Concord Connect, we are reimagining how patient information moves across healthcare so it can be accessed, understood, and acted on without delay.” This continued investment in intelligent data processing brings structured and unstructured information together into unified workflows, enabling organizations to operate with greater speed, resilience, and confidence as the industry moves toward a shared foundation for the future of healthcare.