Telecommunications

The fax — that 1940s technology that exploded in the 1980s and operates by copying an image and transmitting it through squeaks and squawks over a phone line — is still used by a large majority of healthcare providers, insurance payers, and pharmacies.

And it’s simply not going away anytime soon.

As recently as 2019, seven in 10 hospitals were still relying on fax machines and phone lines to transfer and retrieve patient records or order prescriptions, according to the latest figures from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The agency believes there’s been progress since then, but maintains that fax machines remain the most prevalent form of communication for transmitting care records and prescriptions.

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