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HIPAA is a good chunk of the reason medical software and practices are so dysfunctional. Medical practices are some of the last places that use faxes because of

by cm2012 5y ago

HIPAA is a good chunk of the reason medical software and practices are so dysfunctional. Medical practices are some of the last places that use faxes because of it.

User23 5y ago
It used to be the patient's charts were hanging at the foot of the bed. This made it easy for the doctor doing the rounds to get accurate information and for any observers, such as family and friends, to verify that the doctor was actually aware of the details of the patient's condition. Nowadays computer charting is so unusable that patients with drugs allergies are surprised if their physician doesn't try to prescribe a drug that will kill them.
jaxrtech 5y ago
Is it more of a problem of regulation not keeping up with modern developments? Or draconian requirements that got implemented once several decades ago to spec and now no one wants to poke it with a 10ft pole? I guess both apply to most heavily regulated industries that have any level of technology involved.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  It’s neither, just old technology that worked and a system of incompatible electronic health record software vendors which are extremely slowly developing interoperability (there’s not a lot of motivation to make this happen)
mjevans 5y ago
Faxes are used because they are __exempt__ (not secure) and really easy since the UI is simple. Contrast this with any method at all of trying to shove a document over the Internet, which will invariably result in something like a scanned attachment email of a PDF that bloats the mail queue and ends up in legal archives and inboxes forever causing problems. Yes, we've all dreamed of better ways, but that's just like the XKCD standards comic ( https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ ) and ultimately all solutions will require user training and effort.
- cm2012 5y ago
  Every other industry, even old school ones, uses email and digital filing just fine. It's only hard for medical organizations because of HIPAA.
  - mjevans 5y ago
    They likely do use them, and get work done, and from a productivity standpoint might be faster without the red tape. Discussions like this make me wonder if as a society we'd be better off not trying to perform the impossible: have OpSec that is flawless and never leaks data that might be misused; but to not allow the misuse to happen. Medical information misuse touches at least the topics of discrimination, selecting victims of misinformation campaigns, exposing personal issues and preferences (E.G. did someone get an abortion; is a topic ripe for abuse, as are medical histories related to other issues.) Living in a glass house is far from ideal, but in a world where individual rights are better defined and protected, data security could be more standard.

by cm2012 5y ago

HIPAA is a good chunk of the reason medical software and practices are so dysfunctional. Medical practices are some of the last places that use faxes because of it.

User23 5y ago

It used to be the patient's charts were hanging at the foot of the bed. This made it easy for the doctor doing the rounds to get accurate information and for any observers, such as family and friends, to verify that the doctor was actually aware of the details of the patient's condition. Nowadays computer charting is so unusable that patients with drugs allergies are surprised if their physician doesn't try to prescribe a drug that will kill them.

jaxrtech 5y ago

Is it more of a problem of regulation not keeping up with modern developments? Or draconian requirements that got implemented once several decades ago to spec and now no one wants to poke it with a 10ft pole? I guess both apply to most heavily regulated industries that have any level of technology involved.

colechristensen 5y ago
It’s neither, just old technology that worked and a system of incompatible electronic health record software vendors which are extremely slowly developing interoperability (there’s not a lot of motivation to make this happen)

mjevans 5y ago

Faxes are used because they are __exempt__ (not secure) and really easy since the UI is simple. Contrast this with any method at all of trying to shove a document over the Internet, which will invariably result in something like a scanned attachment email of a PDF that bloats the mail queue and ends up in legal archives and inboxes forever causing problems. Yes, we've all dreamed of better ways, but that's just like the XKCD standards comic ( https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ ) and ultimately all solutions will require user training and effort.

cm2012 5y ago
Every other industry, even old school ones, uses email and digital filing just fine. It's only hard for medical organizations because of HIPAA.
- mjevans 5y ago
  They likely do use them, and get work done, and from a productivity standpoint might be faster without the red tape. Discussions like this make me wonder if as a society we'd be better off not trying to perform the impossible: have OpSec that is flawless and never leaks data that might be misused; but to not allow the misuse to happen. Medical information misuse touches at least the topics of discrimination, selecting victims of misinformation campaigns, exposing personal issues and preferences (E.G. did someone get an abortion; is a topic ripe for abuse, as are medical histories related to other issues.) Living in a glass house is far from ideal, but in a world where individual rights are better defined and protected, data security could be more standard.