Oncologists say fax machines reduce efficiency and pose dangers of losing vital data, so why is this outdated technology still so commonly used?
On any given day, oncologist Mark Lewis, MD, feels like he's seesawing between two eras of technology.
"Post-COVID, my guess is we're still at over 50% of healthcare practices using fax for some reason, on a daily basis," Havasy said in an interview."A lot of hospitals just don't have the time, the money, or the staff to fix that problem because there's always something a little higher up the priority chain they need to focus on."
"Ideally, it would come electronically, but sometimes it does come by fax," said Penberthy, program director of radiation oncology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville."The quality of the fax is not always the best. Sometimes it's literally a fax of a fax. You're reading something that's very difficult to read."
As for cybersecurity, data that are in transit during faxing are generally considered secure and compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act , said Havasy of HIMSS. However, thealso requires that data remain secure while at rest, which isn't always possible, he added. "Had the denial been sent by an electronic means that was quicker and more readily available, it would have been possible to appeal before the holiday weekend," he said.
Still, without EHR interoperability between institutions, new providers may be unaware that tests or past labs for patients exist, leading to repeat tests, said Adler-Milstein, who researches health IT policy with a focus on EHRs. Patients can sometimes fill in the gaps, but not always. Incomplete or missing data hampered the ability of public health officials and researchers to understand how the virus might affect different patients.
Nationally, several recent initiatives have targeted health data interoperability, including for cancer care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's
Revenue Electronic Health Records Electronic Health Record EHR Hospitals Electronic Medical Record EMR Electronic Health Record EHR Computerized Medical Records Systems Computerized Patient Records Digital Personal Health Record PHR Computerised Medical Records Systems Computerised Patient Records Cancer Malignant Neoplasia Carcinoma Malignant Neoplasm
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