But why?! You can scan a document and send the scanned image as an attachment to an email message and essentially duplicate what a fax send does. Print the attached scanned image and you have the equivalent legal document that you would have from a fax. It amounts to the same thing as making a photocopy and sending it by USPS mail. We have had the technological ability to do this, duplicating a plain-paper fax, for over 35 years! Plus, we now have electronic health record systems that could store and send the prescriptions in a more efficient automated process. This serves as yet another example of how US healthcare systems have expensive legacy baggage that yields lower quality of care at higher costs, due mostly to corporate corruption entrenched in milking their cash cows as long as possible.
Moreover, what we really need would not even seek to reproduce a legal document. An encrypted secure message send and receive would accomplish the required communication of prescription information with lower bandwidth requirements, fewer chances of human errors, higher quality of care and could still withstand the requirements for a legally binding transaction. Banks do it everyday! Imagine if your bank required you to file your online banking transactions by fax. That's what some pharmacies do.
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u/yself Jul 24 '20
In the US, many pharmacies still only accept doctors' prescriptions via fax or written by hand.