Question

Describe your experience with using a facsimile machine and if you agree or not agree it is an essential part of a healthcare facility. With all the bells and whistles on the Electronic Health Records, will the fax machine still be needed in the office? How might the EHR replace the fax machine? Provide one reference to support your discussion.

Answer 1

Fax machines have been a common fixture in medical practices across the country since they reached peak popularity in the late 1980s; the convenience, reliability, and security of faxing meant it was, and still is, the communication medium of choice for the majority of healthcare organizations. But, technology has come a very long way in past 30 or so years, and expectations have changed – what was deemed to be convenient, reliable, or secure two or three decades ago, might not be anymore.While in one sense this worked, as proven by a significant adoption of electronic health records (EHR), from 9% in 2008 to 83% in 2015, it didn’t account for the sharing of health records between different offices and organizations. In conclusion, faxing isn’t going away, but it is changing. Cloud fax enables organizations to maintain all of the benefits of fax, without the need for cumbersome machines or paper records.