I’ll admit, I’m pretty frustrated right now lol. me and my doctor have been trying to submit a referral to a specialist but for the last several weeks, when i call them, they still haven’t gotten it yet. they told me it’s because they only have one fax machine so it refuses any incoming faxes if it’s in the middle of printing a different one.
my problem is, why haven’t we come up with a more modern and secure way of sending medical files?!?! am i crazy for thinking this is a super unprofessional and unnecessary barrier to care?
luckily I’m mobile enough to drive a physical copy to their location, but not everybody who needs to see this type of doctor can do that, nor should they have to.
Nemo@slrpnk.net 5 weeks ago
In the eyes of the law, a fax is a secure way to send personal information. An email, even an encrypted one, is not. We need to fix the law, but lawmakers as a rule do not understand technology.
commandar@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Speaking as someone who works directly in the field: this is just plain factually incorrect. Encrypted email is compliant with patient privacy regulations in the US.
The issue is entirely cultural. Faxes are embedded in many workflows across the industry and people are resistant to change in general. They use faxes because it’s what they’re used to. Faxes are worse in nearly every way than other completely regulatory-compliant means of communication outside of “this is what we’re used to and already setup to do.”
I am actively working on projects that involve taking fax machines away from clinicians and backend administrators. There are literally zero technical or regulatory hurdles; the difficulty is entirely political.
stinerman@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
I work with healthcare software so I can echo most of what you’re saying.
The thing is the lowest common denominator is a fax (usually a fax server that creates a PDF or TIFF of what comes over the wire), so that’s what people go with. It’s the interoperability between different systems that’s the problem. There’s no one standard…except for faxes.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
“embedded in many workflows”
Key statement right there.
And once people see that that really means, and what it would take to move past it (including time, cost, and risk), they may start to understand.
It became the de facto way to send stuff with high confidence it went to the right place. Then tech addressed the paper-to-paper over one phone line issue with modem banks into a fax server. So all the same fundamental comm tech (so fully backwards-compatible), but a better solution for the company with that infrastructure. Such a company has little motivation to completely change to something new, since they’d have to retain this for anyone that hasn’t switched. Chicken-and-egg problem, that’s slowly moving forward.
It’ll be a long time before it’s gone completely. Perhaps in 20 years, but I suspect fax will still be around as a fallback/compatibility.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
And just try to get regular people to use email encryption. Yes, it could be signed to show that it hasn’t been altered, but then most users can’t even figure out where a file has been saved.
So they use faxes.
Here (not US) they’ve tried implementing a dedicated “secure email platform” for medical professionals so that they can exchange patient data. It’s both progress and kind of idiotic, but it’s not very widely used (because now, they have yet another email address to manage, on top of the six they already have to use).
JustZ@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
You’re both right.
Faxes in the eyes of the law are secure, for any privileged or confidential info. So are secured emails, last I checked.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
We need to try and bankrupt any company that produces fax machines.
The industry will need to adapt once fax machines aren’t produced anymore.
cheers_queers@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
this makes no sense to me when patient portals exist. why isn’t there a provider portal that can handle sending medical info back and forth? I can see all my medical details online already.
halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
See, you’re thinking 21st century, but this is both a healthcare management technology and a government regulation issue, so you’re 2 centuries too new. We need to go back to 1843 with the electric printing telegraph, which used pendulums and electric signals to scan images and send them over telegraph wires. That’s where healthcare technology regulations stopped.
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Providers have a market incentive to provide the most convenient experience to their patients. The market incentive does not exist for sending information to other providers so they will take the path of least resistance to be compliant with regulation
Num10ck@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
because the referring physicians refuse to log into multiple systems and the providers refuse to log into multiple systems and theres no universal trusted system.
Killn1@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Thats the thing. Most if not all insurance companies HAVE provider portals. They cannot get rid of fax until every mom and pop clinic, dentist office, and hospital use these portals.
Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
I mean, from a technological perspective email, even encrypted, really isn’t that secure. That being said neither is fax but…
Fluffy_Ruffs@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Encryption would protect an email in flight and prevent interception. Faxes have no such capability and are entirely susceptible to being tapped.
satans_methpipe@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Vanilla facsimile is not secure at all.